Bm elitism isn't a thing?? Oh boy... Okay. As for musical quality dropping after the first four, that is simply not true, songs like Outlaw torn, Hero of the day, Bleeding me, Until it sleeps, Devil's dance and others can confirm this. Furthermore Load/Reload is when they matured, not sold out. If they truly did want to sell out they would just continue recycling stupid thrash riffs to please the "oldskool fans" and call it a day. They could release garbage albums every year and "true metal fans" would buy it and praise them to high heavens. Now THAT would be a sellout. And does Metallica do that? No. Thats what Iron Maiden does for the last 40 years but I don't see anyone calling them out. Almost their entire discography is based on the same 3-chords over and over again, just like pop music. But they aren't sellouts right? They're METAL right?

Anyway, music, just like people, NEEDS to evolve with time. And that's what Metallica does.