A lot of those new stories rely on the progression of time for someone.
And arguably, peak Batman stories have always occurred when things are allowed to change.
Now, some of those changes were lateral, and didn’t rely on time shifts so much as simply injecting some new element into the story that could be removed eventually - changing the setting with NML, taking off the Joker’s face - but others
very much rely on allowing time to change - the ability to contrast in different stories between a a young, reckless, and raw Batman, and older, veteran campaigner with a different “fermentation” to his anger, bitterness, and brief moments of joy, to Joker being the threat of all threats, to the entire element of Batman being a master teacher and creator of other heroes.
Now, I can see why people don’t want to ever contemplate Bruce Wayne retiring, and may have gotten nervous when Morrison brought him back but wanted Dick to remain in the costume as well, or why people might feel like Batfamily members from Tim on back are extraneous (though I firmly believe they’re wrong
).
But I also don’t believe anyone really just wants to go back to the Silver Age status quo where Batman is static and stagnant, and villains stick to repetitive formulas in appearance, and nothing ever changes.
People want some kind of freshness, bold new flavors, and just plain “new stories,” and the Batfamily... and the passage of *some* amount of time guarantees that.
There can be too much time passages, and there can be too much expansion... but honestly, as long as there’s a stable of writers capable of writing books people will buy based off of whatever scenario they give to Batman... there should be no restrictures on how old Batman and his sidekicks can be.
Whatever works now, works now.
Old man Bruce with a kid named Terry in the Batsuit? If it’s selling, keep printing it.
Young Bruce only aligned with Alfred? If it’s selling, keep printing it.
Dick and Bruce sharing the Bat-mantle? If it’s selling, keep printing it
Dick, Tim, and Jason all dealing with Damian, while Steph and Cass interact with Babs, and while the Birds Of Prey are doing their thing?
If it’s selling, keep printing it.
And you could do all of those at the same time. There’s nothing to keep books from skipping around whatever era a writer has a plan for.
About the only thing I’d say is that editorial shouldn’t end a book or status quo early out of their own fears, or keep a system running longer than necessary. The first volume of Azrael eventually outlived its purpose, and lasted a bit too long; it would have been better to put Jean-Paul Valley aside rather than drag him through another dozen issues so that he had to be killed off. Similarly, cutting off and killing the Batman Inc. era was a mistake.