You even have a very revealing paragraph from the article you linked (and also take in mind this is Shanks POV and he will tilt to the side he deems necessary, but nontheless revealing and making the point more clear):

""Jon and Richie would come to my house, and after the songs were written, or occasionally as a starting point, we'd start programming beats and they'd play guitar, while I played guitars, bass and keyboards, and programmed loops in Logic. We laid the foundations of the arrangements for many songs in that way, with help from my engineer, Paul Lamalfe, and the album's engineer Dan Chase. That was fun, because we could experiment with different sounds and arrangements, and we could then live with the songs for a bit, and revisit them and improve them. We'd later go to the various studios, where we'd record one or two songs at a time, and then we'd add overdubs. With some of the songs for which we did programming, we overdubbed the drums to the programming, but there were also many songs that the band cut from scratch. We'd have done the demo, and would then start again, recording it with the band playing just to a click, and build a new arrangement from there. I might play guitar with them"

Also, here:

"The laptop plays a central role in Shanks' songwriting and arranging because, he explains, "it has many of my favourite soft synths, like Lennar Digital Sylenth, Absynth, Nexus, all Tone2 stuff, especially Gladiator, the Rob Papen synths, Kontakt, and the Arturia synths, all of which I play with my Pro Control controller. I find Logic easy to use because of its drag-and-drop functions, and I can play something on a guitar or keyboard and it's very straightforward to loop it. It's very knucklehead. I get my initial ideas in Logic and when it's up and running I'll put it into Pro Tools. I'll also use a MIDI Time Piece to lock Logic up to Pro Tools, and I'll get beats going in Logic, or use the Absynth, and my Logic rig will then be like an alternate keyboard rig, because I know where all my sounds and sequencer parts are in it.”

To conlude, my point is that the problem of modern Jovi is that songs get crafted and finalized at the intersection of Jon and Shanks, with stale pre-programmed drums and instruments that perfectly coallign with Jon's laziness or comfortability in this way. Band is normally, with some exceptions, introduced very late and there is no point in Tico saying "I want drums differently" on every song. Hence, songs are subpar in average. They are more reflections of Shanks talent than the Bon Jovi's talent. I am not contending that Shanks is lazy or not working hard, but I am contending that I didn't fall in love with his take on Jovi music, but with the band doing the best they can.
But if you believe there was a band Bon Jovi with all its members for several months recording in the studio for long hours (as was in fact, situation with Bob Rock and KTF), then we must kindly disagree on that. However Shanks frames it, that is just not true.

EDIT: I'm not implying anything would change without Richie's absence. Same pattern existed until 2013. Jovi was never too much outside the formula band, it never had wild passages ala Tool or whatever, I'm not going to extremes. And it's completely possible that the pool just dried up. But because I refuse to believe that, there is a sense of hope that band has some of it's magic in the reservoir. But it stays in the reservoir in part due to Shanks overwhelming role of producer, songwriter, arranger, and comfort and safe zone provider. Couple that with a fact there is 0 reason that Tico or Hugh or David or Phil X would constantly nag Jon let's do it differently, we have what we have. I think it's the role of producer to get the best of the band, and not the role of band to push the producer, but feel free to disagree