I think if they had wrapped up the original premise of the show and the series after 5-6 seasons, the DVD sales would have kept the series alive for the younger viewers. They just dragged that thing out for so long that the payoff wasn’t worth it.
Yeah it just got too redundant. Every time they finally “revealed” the big plot of the secret masters it turned out there were other even more secret masters with a bigger plot. After 3 of those reveals I just got tired of it, I watched about half of the season after the movie and that was it, highly unlikely I’ll watch the second movie. I’ve moved on from the X-Files.
I always thought that the show jumped the shark when many of the writers like James Wong left the show and they moved to LA. The acting from the major stars were good, but the supporting actors sucked.