I think the one of the biggest issues is that they don't live together and practice constantly anymore, so it's not like they can just whip out a song on the fly like they used to. If they do, it's likely to get butchered, because they haven't played it in so long. Just a thought.

Totally agree. I've had that happen to two of my favorite Phish songs, Pebbles & Marbles and Scents & Subtle Sounds: they'd been on the shelf for a while and when they did bust them out, they were sloppy and kind of a chore to listen to. To be honest, those "OMG! They've played 280 different songs this tour" segments felt like a baseball player padding his stats just because he can. It also helps to look at setlists from 1993-96, they were pretty standard a lot of the time (ten straight 2001 set 2 openers anyone?). Of course they have more original songs and covers to work with now, but I'll *always* take better playing over novelty.