watching these MG78 episodes on Buzzr, which I had really not spent much time watching before on GSN, I can't help but notice in just 2 weeks (20 episodes) worth it seems like Gene Rayburn is more "burnt" than Richard, and possibly more responsible for the shows ending than Mr. Dawson.
His impatience with a contestnats bad answer is obvious, and lets face it, the producers seem to have "dumbed down" the contestants by now. In fact, in general, his good humor toward a bad answer is now a "wow, you're stupid" which the viewer may have found offensive.
He took his frustration with the way questions were worded to a brief on-camera "chat" with the team about how "this shouldn't happen in the future". He did that on an episode where a question had a written correction on it as opposed to a full-on re-writting. This is most unprofessional.
In general, the attitude has always been "Richard was a bad guy" but I'm actually finding him to be of good humor and contributing to the show. As much as MG '74, no. But he's working a great deal now and, when given the chance to add some fun and frolic, he always does.