@bertoletdown said:

Another way to redeem the history of it all is this: had Phish ended things in less ignominious fashion, they may not have been motivated to come back again.

I agree that part of the reunion/comeback was to prove to themselves and the world that the band didn't have to die in such an ignominious manner. And unlike @Icculus, I've pretty much always thought the entire event musically (other than the bathetic emotions expressed on stage and by my friends on our tarp) was pretty much a trainwreck I've never wanted to revisit. And I think my wife will never forgive the Coventry mud and the one half mile tow from our campsite with the tractor from killing the tranny on her white Villager which was junked a week later.

But IMO it was also Trey's humbling experiences with facing addiction and the criminal justice system that put being a jaded rockstar in a whole new light. Sitting inside a jail cell when you're violated for probation, even for a day, or spending the better part of a year with drug court supervision and menial community service tasks like rakeing up a county fairgrounds must put being on stage and playing to tens of thousands of adoring fans (and being a success and making a pretty good living taboo) in a whole different light from when he was doing it and being bored by it (and I've always thought that part of the self-medication of those years stems from boredom with his musical career and an existential crisis, even if he didn't consciously realize it).

I'll bet that his statement that he'd "give his left nut to pay YEM every day for the rest of his life" came from the depths of this period in his life and he wasn't thinking at all like that in the spring and summer of 2004.