I agree with what you said about albums as a cohesive piece of art, I will miss that for sure.

> Forcing artists to pump out strings of singles and EPs

But who is forcing the artists? The market? It's clear people don't want to listen to LPs released every 3-4 years, they want singles and EPs released frequently. If it is indeed a market effect, then artists need to evolve or perish. If you want to make money selling art, you need to make it in a way that people want to buy it. It's that simple.