I'll merely point out that I didn't have these videos in my quiver as shining examples...I decided to search YouTube for Buy or Sell because it's a game Drew didn't host beyond his first year, and I was curious to see it. The glimpse these clips give us into his performance is a mere coincidence, and in this case, it was a good one. Seemingly every time I watch the show now, I don't see him joking like that...but that may be more a symptom of the show's editing, I'll admit, because you see it in person, or on the show's Facebook page.
I remember when Drew had the model remove the wrong tag in Double Prices, but we've also seen all the classic hosts make mistakes - Barker gave away an answer in Pick a Pair in the '80s, revealed the price in Cover Up too early when he was in his 80s...
I guess if there's something we could possibly agree on, it's that Drew is far more consistent these days than he was in his first season. Back then, I felt like he taped more episodes where you could tell he was tired, etc. But I'll always take a step back to assess when the notion is that a host is disinterested or "only there for the paycheck" - aren't we all essentially at our jobs for the paycheck?
-Jason