I don't think the next album would have been classic no matter who the singer was. It seemed obvious that Ed just wasn't up to making any coherent statements for about 5-6 years after VHIII.

I like the unreleased song in that its got a good melody and Cherone stays more in his natural singing range. A problem with much of VHIII is that the vocal melodies aren't so memorable, and it always sounds like Cherone is shredding is vocal chords. He just sounded better in Extreme. I have a feeling Ed was dictating some of the melody lines, but he just didn't understand how to arrange for a singer well enough. Obviously, Sammy probably wrote his vocal melodies on his own.