Yeah they changed the behind the scenes team to the people who'd been doing the Rider movies, and like flicking a light switch the show becomes totally different. The first 29 episodes of Hibiki are awesome. In fact I think the episodes in the mid to late 20s are some of the best the franchise has ever had. Had it ended on episode 29 it would be my favourite KR show ever. Unfortunately it all goes to hell from there. I actually think that the Hibiki world in KR Decade makes a better final episode than the one they gave the actual show. Also, the movie is one of the weaker ones (though I've seen the original Seven Samurai, on which the Hibiki movie is meant to be based, so that could have altered my viewpoint on that).
From what I've heard they immediately alienated a lot of fans by abandoning a lot of the usual rider tropes (bug eyes, Hibiki can't ride a bike, lots of tech etc), and the show was expensive in part due to the CGI but also because they constantly filmed on location (which also caused constant delays meaning they nearly didn't get some episodes finished in time to air). Supposedly Bandai was also less than pleased, believing the show had relatively little to make appealing toys from. So in theory it wasn't unreasonable to put the guys in charge of the successful Rider films in charge instead. The new guys basically removed some of the more expensive elements (flame breath went, filming in cities rather than wilderness etc), and threw in more weapons and traditional rider elements. Unfortunately by that time the people who had watched the show had come to love it, so all they did was piss the remaining viewers off and it didn't bring in anything like the desired numbers of new viewers. There were also lots of behind the scenes issues (apparently the finale was still being rewritten while they were trying to film it, the new staff seriously clashed with the actor playing Hibiki and so on) and this spilled out and became public (which was considered somewhat scandelous).
Bearing in mind that Blade had started with a minor outcry concerning it's lead actor, and Faiz had REALLY pushed things content-wise, it's no surprise that the next series was a back-to-basics bug theme that took no risks, and then the year after they made a big kid-friendly tonal shift.