Actually even the RTFS remake was done by SSG, not SSI, and it was released from the remnants of SSI (most of the SSI folks had long been laid off) that was owned by Mattel Interactive at the time.
And RTFS is a PERFECT example of what I am talking about. It was a game where they tried to please everyone and pleased no one. They tried to remake a game that was a darling of the hard core 4X crowd, but dumbed it down a great deal. And they tried to make a game that the general public would like, but many of that audience didn't care for it.
Don't get me wrong the game has good qualities but there were a lot of folks that were disappointed by the overall quality of the remake. It surprised me too because I am a big SSG fan. In my mind you should always try to please you core audience with a game like this, and hopefully if you do a good enough job you will win converts from the casual gamers out there.
As far as SSI goes I was a huge SSI freak, my wife said I should buy stock in them
. If it had SSI on the box I used to buy it without thinking as I knew I was going to get a game I would love. Those were the days
.