The same thing seems to be going in the gaming market. There's a big flood of games with the number 2 or three after it. Most of the biggest ones are written by companies that had nothing to do with the original version. For the most part the games lose something in the handoff. Like they lose soul, or the original flavor. I don't think I like it.
I seen it happen in this area when I first got into our trade. All the shop owners had mature shops and there was a flip in ownership. To me it didn't matter because I wasn't there to see the originals. But there was a lot of "super heros" and "legends" from right before that time. Being young I didn't get it, to me they were just kickass oldtimers. Now its 25 years later and I wont work in second generation shops because they are finished. they are running on autopilot. Bonus's are a thing of the past, good worker recognition is gone, shop pride is gone. Needless to say, most of those shops are gone or are down to a handful of lower paid moldmakers running obsolete equipment lucky to get 40 hours.
My conclusion is when a cad or cam program is sold...it's finished. HSM works is a perfect example. I watched it happen to Smartcam, in it's day the best pc cam product out there. I watched it happen to Camax, the best unix pc cam product out there. I watched it happen to Pro-e, the best cad product out there.