Literally the only reason I played LoS at all is because I was an old school Spyro fan to begin with and I was curious. I don't understand how anyone outside of Spyro fandom who wasn't paid to play it ever did. As a nice touch, Mike Graham (or maybe Chris Wilson; I get them mixed up) said himself in an interview that the LoS team could care less about their older fans and that they were aiming for a new audience. It was a nice spit in the face to the people who actually liked Spyro and I think there's more than one reason why LoS was a financial failure.
I really hope Activision is learning something from the success of games like New Super Mario Bros. Wii. If you're going to keep a franchise going, you need to aim for the old fans to start. New players will come in through word of mouth if you deliver a good gaming experience that is familiar to older players (or you must innovate in such a way that your new game is really new and also good, which is much harder to pull off).
Seriously?! He didn't use those words exactly did he? Do you have a link to the quote?