And that, folks, is the real problem. AE had "reride" value. SGE does not.
As for the scare factor: What exactly made AE so darn scary? Well, it wasn't the show content as much as the fact that kids were made to sit in an isolated chair, with a restraint over their body, in the dark, while strange and frightening loud sounds played.
So what about SGE? It's SOOOOO much tamer, right?
Wrong.
In SGE kids are made to sit in an isolated chair, with a restraint over their body, in the dark, while strange and frightening loud sounds are played.
Sound familiar?
SGE is the ONLY attraction in the MK to have a "May Be Scary for Young Children" warning. No other attraction in the MK, including the HM and SWSA currently carries such a warning.
Each time I've been on SGE (exactly twice: the second time I had to convince myself the show wasn't as bad as I remembered... and failed) I've seen screaming kids leaving, just like I saw screaming kids leaving AE.
SGE is just (IMHO) another example of Disney replacing an effective attraction (and AE was very effective at what it did) with a dumbed-down version designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
'Course, that's my opinion.