I think that the Load/Reload thing is exactly the same as the Use Your Illusion double album deal - a whole load of tracks that could have made just one half-decent album rather than being filled out with a lot of inferior tracks.
I really liked what you said about the band still being in there somewhere, and I consider myself lucky to have grown up alongside the music Metallica have produced as they made their journey, but sometimes I wonder what the hell they were thinking when they wrote Enter Sandman ..