Yeah you're right and I have to say, after watching a documentary about the history of the Crash Bandicoot games, they really couldn't match up to the original 3's concepts of simplicity. Spyro the Dragon managed to keep it's roots from what I can tell but I'm only going off the remastered trilogy I'm playing at the moment.
You're right about these games losing their independence once they get mopped up by the bigger corps. Don't blame the small gaming companies at all actually, it's an opportunity for them but it comes at a cost hey...