I always kind of got the impression that who Andy was associating with provided a lot of the motivation to make quality content: JF and IMC, for example, actually put time and editing into their content and Andy kind of emulated that. Even if you hate them, there's no denying that they took time for their videos to provide the content, made it clear they spent time in a video editing program, and it wasn't a "one take and done" kind of thing, and Andy really put forth the effort to make his content the same way. There was, for lack of a better phrase, pride in his work because Andy wanted to show people he was taking it seriously like his co-hosts.
Then contrast that with Failure, Geek, Ralph, and now Adolwulf. All of them do low-tier content. Ralph doesn't do anything for his own show, relying on his unpaid adjuncts to get the stories and what-not that he "covers". Geek's entire thing is drama and streaming about it, not doing videos. That's why he pushed the streaming content, and why the videos at that time were low-effort one-take-and-done shit. Failure just...really never did anything, and that's why after Miami I don't think you see them really interacting in a similar manner (and I like Failure, so take this as you).
In short, whomever he surrounds himself with really is the driving force behind the quality of the content he does.