What happened to Need For Speed?

I remember the first time I played a NFS game. I was about 8 or 9, and the first one I played was NFS: Porsche 2000. That game was so awesome! Very limited, but still, it blew me away. After that, I started to follow the series more deeply. When the series did a turn-over to street racing, I thought it would become dissapointing. But it didn't...until NFS Carbon appeared. All street racing based NFS games from NFS Underground to NFS Most Wanted were awesome. Then, I bought carbon and it really turned me down, to the point that I haven't bought an NFS game since Carbon.
 
What happened to the series? How did one of the best racing series of the last years became so uninteresting and has only managed to release failure after failure? Now that other racing games are around, most don't even turn their heads to NFS anymore. All opinions are welcome!

Being part of the EA might have something to do with it, churning out sequel after sequel. This eventually may burn out the creativity or passion behind each game, coming out with a mediocre game. A franchise can only be abused so frequently.
 
Well, with the exception of FF series and Nintendo franchises.

Shift is a pretty good racing game. Dont know why it gets all the hate. 
 
I bet if it was called GRiD 2, the reactions to it would be very different.

The only NFS game that I ever liked was hot pursuit 2, that's it.  I've always considered NFS a second tear racing game, and I've never understood why people buy NFS just because it says NFS on the box.
 
However, I will say Underground 1+2 were ok, but still not the best racing games I've ever played. 
 
 But to me NFS will always be a second tear racing game that does a good job of being an arcady style racing game.  I will say, I've never hated a NFS, but I've never purchased one before because it's just a little to mediocre for my taste.

EA happened to it.