"Top creators doing work on whatever they wanted."
Except that many top creators turned doing an issue because of how harsh the restriction on "whatever they wanted" turned out to be: Each issue had to have at least one story involving a DC character, and each issue had to be 48 pages in total, regardless of whether the creator wanted to do more or less. I believe there were also nudity restrictions. Apparently, that's DiDio's laughable definition of creative freedom. As usual, DiDio and his buddies managed to take a good idea and ruin it.