Well i can say for sure that i only like old school VK . The new ones just do not sound good , most bands technically sound like a boysband but with more rock/metal sound to it nothing more . Seriously i miss the good old VK , where bands where really amazing and all had they're own style and sound , they where what VK was meant to be unique . Now its just a bunch of copycats who suck at doing anything alone , and are not unique at all . One band is a copy of another who is a copy of some other that is a copy of some other and so on . You can compare the new VK bands to crap on the same level as Justin Bieber . Just listening to them make me wants to puke , old VK had some awesome range of different genres from softer rock to really heavy and brutal metal , now its all just nu or alternative metal with some mix of alternative rock here and there . I check almost all new bands , but after first minute i have enough of them . At least there are some good VK bands in all that mass of crap that play some good stuff like , Nocturnal Bloodlust (did not start as VK , turned into a VK and lost 2 starting members also started to play post hardcore instead deathcore) , Omega Dripp (good old schoolish VK Band with some great technique and some good old school sound , they play industrial/glam rock , and sound like Rob Zombie in some songs) , Versailles (what to say Hizaki and Kamijo are both oldschool in VK) , NoGod (tend to have some good songs , but mostly nothing special) and thats all .
I cant say its a Phase for VK , its rather the fact that you're music taste changed or matured . There are a lot of japanese music fans who want to listen to some unique bands , and its just happens that the new VK stuff is everything but unique . Playing the same genres and copying each other does nothing good , and i think that Hideto Matsumoto is turning in his grave when he sees what has become of VK . And if you look more closely around the forums and ask more about who listens to VK and who not you will see that 60-70% of VK listeners are girls between age of 12 to 20 , so its only natural that a bunch of beautiful/handsome and cool guys will be an awesome band no matter how crappy and unskilled they're music is .
BTW , if you listen music with passion than you cant grow out of it . I still listen to EZO , old Loudness albums , Mari Hamada and other 80s stuff , why ? Cause rock and metal was milion times better than most stuff released today , but thats only one side of the medallion the other one is of course that is just love those bands .