I kinda thought the opposite. I mean I haven't had the chance to see them at festivals and such, but I was pleasantly surprised last time they came. I saw them at metro city in '01(?) and they blew me away, then when they played at robbo with Korn and Static X I wasn't too impressed so I wasn't expecting much when they last came but they blew me away. I thought they were killer.
This new lineup is fucking weird though. When did all this happen?
After their last album/touring cycle...Burton went to work on his "Ascension of the Watchers" project, and Christian and Ray started writing new material without him and eventually decided to start a new band called Arkaea with Jon Howard and Pat Kavanagh from Threat Signal on Vox/Bass. (Their CD comes out next month, have a listen here...its pretty much Fear Factory minus Burton:
http://www.myspace.com/arkaeamusic)
Then earlier this year Bell and Dino annoucned they were buddies again and were re-forming Fear Factory, with Gene and Byron.
EDIT: After checking their myspace, Christian were also involved in a mini 7 a side soccer tournament to raise money for the Victorian Bushfire relief funds...thats pretty damn nice of them to do something for the Australian public like that!