Would love there to be a JRPG forum for this, oh well.  It's a topic that has been brought up several times I know, but maybe this is a slightly different outlook.  Flames are fine too if you hate it that much, doesn't bother me ^^. 

So having recently moved back to Japan, I've been dabbling back into the Japanese game industry in assorted forms, largely JRPGs (as they were my first love of gaming.  In Japan, there seem to be two major categories of JRPGs these days.   
 
1) The Classic - Most often seen on portable systems like the DS and PSP, these are your basic tried and true JRPG formula.  Often with some anime inspirations, they don't do anything out of the norm that you haven't seen since the early days of Final Fantasy.  Often they seek to appeal to nostalgia for the 'good old days' of JRPGs.  Dragon Quest also seems to be part of this category, even though it exists outside the standard portable formula. 
 
2) The Experimental - Think of the recent Final Fantasy games, maybe even White Knight Chronicles or Resonance of Fate.  Basically these are your games that may take a JRPG narrative style but seek to introduce really unique gameplay mechanics.  Sometimes they are great (streamlined FFXIII battle system) and sometimes they are a bit more of a miss (Resonance of Fate's...well, whatever it's combat is).  This seems to be the general trend for the console RPG. 
 
It almost has reached a point where the two have become their own genre, as there are many people that have hated games like FFXIII specifically for being too experimental.  On the other hand, there is fair criticism to be made of the classical style of JRPGs, as they don't really innovate or bring anything new to the table that we haven't seen thousands of times before.  Personally I am much more a fan of the experimental style, as even when it misses it is seeking to push the genre forward.  Yet at the same time, making games like this seems to be alienating a fair bit of the JRPG fanbase. 
 
The question remains, should the genre attempt to innovate at the risk of alienating its base, or should it stick to the classical style even if it runs the risk of becoming stale.  Is there a happy medium?   
 
Note: No comparisons to WRPG are necessary, it's an entirely different genre as far as I am concerned with a totally different set of pros and cons.