His legacy would be a lot stronger, there's no doubt about it. Not even a debate. To what extent? I think it's hard to say IMO. But there's no doubt that (more or less) every one of his albums is worse than the previous one after TES in 2002. There are a couple of exceptions to that rule, but it's mostly a downward trajectory.
After TES he was arguably at his cultural peak, and that was arguably his best album.
Culturally he's still.stealing, hes not top 5 on a cultural level regardless
