One, holy shit an active thread, where have I been?
I agree with both of you on two different points. I agree with Justin, I love the five piece set up, I miss Jared's stage presence from that five, but Ryan is great as a musician in his own right (I love his solo album a lot) and I'm sure all of his work on some huge tours in his time away from Ben will have changed that aspect completely. Ben Folds crowds are gonna seem tiny in comparison to what Michael Buble pulls.
Secondly, I agree that if it's all RtB inspired I hope the lyrics get a re-work, or something. Part of what drew me into the Folds world in the beginning was the lyricism, and I know Ben has routinely said that's the hardest part of the job for him, but I have always valued how great of a story teller he is, and the stream-of-consciousness songs don't work as well for me as the third person stories, or something more heartfelt. That being said, it's been quite a long time since Folds put out a record he is the sole songwriter on (2008, not including, the concerto based record) so hopefully these have had time to simmer and be perfected. That's one thing that I've always imagined Ben was lacking when it wasn't as much of a team - do the guys in the rest of the band make suggestions like Darren (and Anna) used to? I could be inventing all of that; but Ben's much more the "boss" in this layout than mostly equal parts (except songwriting credit; therefore payday).