The problem they did is this:
After the black album, they started to put out a bunch of albums that weren't them, or their fan base. Load and Reload. God's know what they were thinking...
Many of there fans were still young enough that they wanted to hear the hard stuff, but Metallica decided to start wearing eyeliner and black nail polish and make songs that were much softer and didn't appeal to the legion of rockers whatsoever. (They also filed a lawsuit against Napster and lost many fans cause of this)
Now that many of there fans are older and probably listen to softer stuff themselves, these guys make an album like them and their fans are in there teens.
Did things ass backwards.