So, I've read back through the thread and the last few posts, and, as I understand it:
-Sugiyama owns all the music for DQ
-they're pretty much stuck with him because it's pretty inextricably linked with the series
-he's phoning it in now
But I'm still not quite getting why it's so bad in DQXI. Again, just the quality of the samples is a downgrade from DQVIII. Is some of this stuff legit recycled from older games, or is he just that lazy now?