You go back down the years, look at the stuff that came about. You could argue the modern shooter was born in the community, looking beyond counterstrike, the template for most of it came from desert combat.
No doubts in my mind though that the collective noun of anybody on the planet wins out over a dev team working within the constrants of the industry, so were you to view all things being a closed door, then yes, doom and gloom.
I wouldn't say thats the case though, there's still good out there, it's just not as simple and easy as it once was. While you average collective Still has the great idea and inovation that gave us the game types that flooded the early quake/hl/bf games, from everything iv'e seen and read, the consensus seems to be there's far more involved in producing for a modern platform. Holding a commited team to produce anything half polished becomes difficult when they could working within the industry.
Spose if you applied that last point, then maybe you'd lose that spark, probaly a fair to say once you're within the industry, constraints and pressures that go with from either the publisher, or the need to bring somerthing to market, forces you to do, rather than do whatever.
