Hans Zimmer explained parts of the writing process for one of the Dune tracks in a recent episode of Songexploder: https://songexploder.net/dune
I found it quite interesting and did not get the impression that he is just phoning it in, but it is difficult to judge from a short podcast of course.
Indeed, a casual listener like myself is basically paying money to the top artists while not listening which is a bit absurd. It is a problem that should be possible to at least partly resolve by calculating artist market share without a bias towards users that have Shopify open all the time. Incidentally, I blogged about this some time ago: https://davidlebech.com/thoughtflow/spotify-royalties/
I agree that it is slightly weird that the aliens wait for you to discover them. However, when playing on impossible difficulty (and maybe also classic?), the aliens don't "hang out" most of the time. They will actively seek you out and it can be quite a challenge when they all show up to the party at the same time.
I also had severe performance problems with VirtualBox on Windows but they were magically fixed by increasing the number of virtual CPUs from 1 to 2. I am talking 10-20 times performance boost just by doing that and nothing else. Maybe the same will help you. I blogged about it here: http://thoughtflow.dk/2012/12/07/prevent-slow-linux-performa...
My first reaction was also: This is sad. But then again. If you're doing something you love, you're (probably) doing the right thing. It might be an addiction but it's not necessarily ruining their health and lives like crack. But I admit, it IS rather difficult to understand the obsession.
I found it quite interesting and did not get the impression that he is just phoning it in, but it is difficult to judge from a short podcast of course.