Coaster dude, take off those employee glasses for a second, look beyond all the corporate rubbish they fill your heads with during training and inductions and start to look at the bigger picture. One train operation, endless budget cutting, cheaper additions to the park has an effect. We've already seen what a bad year has done to Thorpe in 2012 (change of target audience, Rushed additions backed up by IP's, a park completely lost in what its identity is) or what ten years of neglect did to Chessington (Near death of a young girl, rides closed and tonnes of theming removed).
Merlin do have some excellent stuff, their rollercoasters for instance are pretty impressive, the way the Smiler was advertised was genius and I do still believe The Swarm is far better and deserves more credit then it currently gets. But's it's completely wrecked by some of the poor decisions made in an office somewhere with the way the parks are run and how information is communicated down to the guests.
My final note is ten years ago, Tesco was top of the tree, dominating everything around it. And now look at it. It's very easy to get big headed at the top but pride normally comes before a fall.