They might want it but they ain't getting it. It seems like the minimum for a big budget summer movie is now over 2 hours whether it needs to be that long or not. That's not to say that some movies don't earn a long run time but a movie like Transformers might have been watchable if it had been...
I understand that the 'thrill of the hunt' is something that is fondly remembered by people who grew before the advent of home video (as a comic book fan, I remember the days before eBay where you had to go far flung stores or conventions to find things) but by your logic, only people who grew...