I'm gonna disagree with you on Transistor being worth a crap. Their first three: Music, Grassroots, and 311 were amazing. Transistor was the beginning of the end.
i dont get that, since Transistor is pretty much a longer Grassroots. nice mix of hard rocking tracks with some laid back reggae mixed in. i used to feel like Music was on the level with Grassroots, but now that i go back and listen to their entire catalog, i see that Music has a lot more going on lyrically than the new albums, but being a bunch of tracks from all of their indie CDs its just too rough when compared to later stuff. i think Grassroots is when they hit the sweet spot with their lyrics still being solid and their sound becoming more polished.
personally Transistor is my favorite album, but thats just because its longer than Grassroots. and this is coming from a fan who absolutely hated transistor when it first dropped.