Yeah, 4 was definitely better than 3 imo. 3 was just ok imo, 4 was great. Hopefully Gat out of Hell will be good and hopefully Volition will release 5 within 2 years, preferably with a new graphics engine designed for next-gen instead of the tired old engine they've been using since like SR2 I think. 4 hinted at time travel in 5, so I hope they go through with that. I also hope they find away to keep the superpowers from 4, super speed, wallrunning, and gliding made getting around the world so much easier than using vehicles. 

You're definitely not the only one who feels that way, there are plenty of fans of SR1 and 2 who want Volition to go back to the old style. However I doubt that they will, Volition got tired of living in Rockstar's shadow so they decided to stop trying to compete with GTA and instead carved out a new niche for the series making humorous games filled with puns and pop culture references. They pretty much have that niche to themselves, only Borderlands is similarly humorous, while there is alot more competition when it comes to serious open world action-adventure games; GTA, Red Dead, Just Cause, Batman Arkham, etc. The fact that Gat out of Hell seems just as silly and off the wall as SR3 and SR4 suggests that Volition doesn't plan to return to making serious Saints Row games. 

Saints Row 3 actually outsold Saints Row 2, that's probably part of the reason why they decided to continue making the humorous games instead of going back to the serious style of the first 2 games. Saints Row 4 sales were down compared to both 2 and 3, but I think that was more because of poor release timing than people not liking the humourous take on the series, they released it in August which isn't typically the best time to release games (parents dealing with back to school costs for their kids, teenagers busy with homework once school starts, etc.), and they released it a month before GTA V which killed it's legs. Plus I think that Volition just prefers making humorous games, their other series, Red Faction, is pretty humorous as well if I recall correctly. They tried the serious thing with SR 1 and 2 and they just weren't happy with people comparing it unfavorably with GTA I guess, so they decided to take the series in a different direction. Maybe one day they'll do another serious SR game, maybe the should have 2 seperate Saints Row series going forward, one serious for the fans of SR1 and SR2 like yourself, and the other humorous for the fans of SR3 and SR4 like me and slade. 

Yeah, I think that SR4 was originally an idea they had for a SR3 DLC, but they decided to expand upon it and make it a full game.

I think the Helicopter missions were only in SR3, and I agree they were pretty crappy, my least favorite of all the side missions in SR. SR4 has some pretty good side missions imo, I especially like the insurance fraud missions but the tank missions and professor genki missions are good as well. 

I only played the beta for Red Faction: Guerilla (which was pretty good). I do remember that there was a special gun you could get that was a Unicorn who farts rainbows.  Volition has always had a penchant for the silly it seems xD

I just learned what my problem is, I run around too much.