Actually, both bands seemed exactly the same to me. The vocals were different, but it was like the same cd with different singers or something. And they WERE better than Spiral Architect last year, but considering that Spiral Architect was the single worst performance of ever had the disprivelege of seeing, that's not saying much.
As for "equal talent", I'm talking about bands not under the "prog" umbrella. Take a band like Gamma Ray, for instance. You'd be hard pressed to find a band that is better than them because they have the whole package: technical skill, live show performance skill, song writing skill with melody, and a tight well rehearsed unit. Until some of these prog bands take notice of, say, Threshold or Superior and what they do to help the music translate into a "show", then they'll always be somewhat less for me.