Hahh, yeah you've got me here. Well, I've had my fun too and I did laugh at the Hard Times article, but already seen too many identical comments
I loved V&V and still enjoyed Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!, but that was about as far as I could go in terms of his sound exploration. After that I couldn't get into anything he put out at all.
I'm sure he'll be back at some point. While the new album was a disappointment, every single Panic! release prior to that was killer.