I try my best not to be rude or insult people on this board unless provoked but I have to tell you that in the 15+ years I have been posting, you just possibly wrote the dumbest thing I have ever read.

As far as line up changes go, it is almost as rare as seeing Bigfoot that one of the replacements makes the band better than the classic line ups in this genre of music.

And it's almost always for the same reason - Even though alot of times the replacements are technically better players than the originals as in the case of Dave Amato, they don't have the "magic" that made the music so good in the first place.

Dave can play better than Gary, but Gary made up the parts that Dave is playing and therefore plays with way more emotion because he is connected to the songs in a deeper way.

If Dave had been with REO at the start, do you have any idea how many great REO classics would have never happened? I hope that you are a young guy because if you aren't, I am dumbfounded...