Hi,
Steven has been at it for 25 years. Started out in his garage and sold cassettes of a band, that he played all instruments on. And it became successful.
From that "Porcupine Tree" was made, with some excellent musicians, that were not beginners, most notably is Richard Barbieri, who had done keyboards for a group named Japan in the 80's. And PT did fairly well, however, when it got to the part where you either become a major rock band, a top ten, or top five act, the band ... did not make it for whatever reason, and some of it might have had to do with Steven wanting to have a harder edge in his rock material. And while the last three albums is fantastic, in the end, it was not appreciated as much as it should have been. "Deadwing" is an excellent album, the following just as good and the last one, was very good, but it would have been better if it was just a single CD instead of 2, with a piece or two taken out ... but by then, a few things were obvious.
Steven Wilson was bored with Richard's work, which is as close to Pink Floyd's Rick Wright as you will ever hear. Almost all of his keyboard work is "atmospheric", and not exactly a ditty or a portion of a song. And Steven, on his own for a couple of years now, apparently on sabbatical from PT, does not sound half as good as the PT atmospheric sound, specially in the earlier days. With "The Incident" some of that was gone, and in his own solo albums, I could not help the feeling .. this was just another song ... with the "wholesome" design of the band, totally gone.
In between, Steven has done something that he knows well ... he is a studio master, and spent a lot of time with Robert Fripp and Gary Green, and this got him to re-do various albums by King Crimson, and Gentle Giant, and later some YES and other bands. Honestly, I did not find his mixes any better than the original, and it only felt like the guitar was closer to your ear and the saxonphone wasn't ... duhhhhh ... I guess the saxophone doesn't count as a rock instrument. GG was already excellent, even without the "mix", as were many of the others, and I found the whole thing silly and another perfect record company ruse ... in this case a nice one for Robert Fripp that would go out selling those versions and not carry the older stuff in his website! Or distribution channels!
Solo ... I have not enjoyed SW as well as I have the whole PT band. it lacks a "totality" that in the single albums could be considered "ego", and "opinion", that I have not enjoyed, not that it was not there before, but it was quieter, then. I haven't even gotten the last album, as I have other priorities of material to get for my collection to replace LP's, which ought to tell you how much I care about that work, but he is very good ... and in terms of production, superlative and even better ... very clear and detailed, and this makes his work (sometimes) seem even better than it really is.