An even more restrictive version of this argument could have been made when William Hartnell left the show, but the decision to radically reinvent the character is the reason we still have Doctor Who. It's a show that should constantly embrace massive changes, including changes to its title character.

Well, yeah, the last few Toho films had pretty lackluster effects work...

I'm not in any way suggesting that individual American filmmakers and effects technicians don't have any worthwhile goals in developing new effects technology. Gravity is an example of new effects techniques being applied because of specific narrative requirements. But surely you aren't suggesting that ALL - or even…

Wait, you refer to the Toho films as "low-budget cgi fests," despite the fact that more than half of them were made before cgi was even a thing...?