As a dancer, yes, as a singer yes. But as a creator, no. The former two are just mere skills that you simply 'have' you can hone train and dedicate your life to these skills but there will always be a cap on them and as to how good they can be, he has nothing to worry about though, he's still one of the best ever at both of them. But as a creator, well creation is a harder thing to define, it's not so much a skill but a talent. I truly believe the words he would use when he said things like "the best is yet to come" my head wants to think he was just being optimistic surely he could not achieve greater heights, but something in my gut tells me he knew exactly what he was saying when he said these things, he knew himself and his ability's better than anyone, but most importantly of all he had faith in these ability's and a true creator can love and believe in these things to a level to rival anything in existence. Passion is the most important thing, as well as talent, but we already know he had immense talent, so it almost becomes an already dealt with irrelevance in getting to the true core of the matter. But that passion translated into self belief and a deep love for the things he believed he was placed on this earth to do, and that can produce overwhelming results, without it, the talent is meaningless, there is a reason he made such comments about his future output, he knew what he could do. Look to the great classical composers, many of their greatest works came when they reached an old age, or near their deaths, they were rarely at the start of their careers. Corny as it sounds it really does all come from Love, and i guess at the later time of his life he probably didn't feel loved by many except his biggest fans, his children, and perhaps a few friends. Every creation is a gift, and i guess it's harder to fuel that gift without feeling external love, so the creation becomes more introverted, potentially darker in color and character but still equally as mesmerizing, but merely different. I believe with this is it under his belt, he could have got that self belief back from external love to peak levels again, don't get me wrong, i truly believe he always believed his own abilities and loved everyone, but i do believe he probably felt great sadness at it not always being reciprocated. It's all basically my way of saying, i believe he was in a transition period, the best wasn't necessarily to come in terms of basic literal skills, but in terms of the wider cosmos of creation, i think he'd only just started, the journey was only just beginning, the flower was just coming into bloom. Still his career work and output is a testament to the man that was and still is in spirit. I miss him very much, and would have given anything to have a long chat with him about what being creative means to him as an individual and it's role in the wider world, instead i'm stuck in a band that only cares about sex drugs and rock and roll, god help me. All of us here have immense respect for Michael, weather we sometimes forget to show it or not, it's a special place to be in dark times.