Its a tough decision, but the right one
It seems when you first see this you think "WTF he is leaving NG?, isn't that what gets his animations out there?" . But then you listen to the commentary and it makes more sense. Newgrounds being a great place it is, does have dark little negatives when it comes from the perspective of the animator. When the feedback of your fans/non-fans is right there in your face it does many things. And yes it can get you into the rut where your trying to make the animations because you want people to like them.
You forget the whole reason why you make animations, because its something you do to humor yourself. Yes the plus side is making stuff people like, but when you loose focus of the real reason things go down hill. And some of you might see this in the TooF animations. I honestly enjoyed all of them, and but you can tell where some stuff was put in there "out of the way". It wasn't normal, it just didn't feel right. This is what happens when your focus changes from doing what you love, to doing what you think other people will like.
.....
I don't know about you guys but what time I put into graphic design/animation etc is because I enjoy it. And with many of us our free time is precious, we have jobs, go to college, have real lives (unlike some on here). If your not enjoying it man, than yeah this is a step in the right direction. We all know you have a good number of aces up your sleve, so by far it won't be the end of TooF on Newgrounds. But in light of it all it will make things much better.
(And thanks for the "shoutout" in the end text your icecream eating bastard)