Carlin's routines became more cynical and coarser as he got older, and that isn't surprising; that he abandoned the search for a definitive punchline to make all his grousing and cynicism palatable came , in fact, as a relief. One would have cringed if he maintained the zonked out Everyman that was his trademark. I'd agree with you that he pretty much ran his course by the time the 2000s started, and he couldn't gain a vantage in a post-9/11 world; the worst had already happened and now the seer had nothing to do once the greed, avarice, stupidity and meaness of Western Civilization was wounded in the most horrible way. He seemed reduced to saying "I told you so".