Yeah, this is definitely close to my interpretation, though I doubt it's intended to be an allegory about From and Namco specifically. It's more likely it's a statement about the necessity of moving on creatively, instead if clinging on to outmoded and decaying forms. Though I really doubt my post was the "tenth" time someone advanced the same theory, as someone claimed. This seems to be the only other time, as far as I can tell.

Also, there's a great deal of debate on the thread about whether Ds2/3 are as good as the first game, with the top comment proclaiming in no uncertain terms that they are "in no way inferior." But the confidence with which one advances unsupported claims are no guarantee of their validity, and I see no arguments in defense of this claim. It betrays rather a lacking aesthetic judgment, which doesn't penetrate to the core of things, you might say to their "soul."

Because the problem with Ds2 is that, generally speaking, it imitates the forms of Ds1, but the soul is missing. You sense a lack of the meaning and intelligence that informed every part of Ds1. In fact this is such a pervasive sense that it almost becomes an artistic statement of its own, except that it seems largely unintentional. The devs probably approached the project with at least a slight degree of hubris, feeling that they could not only preserve the soul, but make it "better," as the unperceptive imagine they did. But like Vendrick, they failed, and it escaped their control, and turned into an exploration of failure and repetition, mostly against their design.