I have a lot of thoughts on this.
First, I grew up in 70s and live albums were a big thing then. A lot of bands made their mark through live albums (BOC, Ted Nugent, Frampton, Cheap Trick). Live songs would routinely be played on the radio. Two things noteworthy about those 70s albums:
1. Difference between the studio and live production wasn't that great. In fact, it wasn't unusual for a live version to sound better than a studio version.
2. Live version could often be markedly different from studio version. Bands would often stretch them out or play extended instrumental sections or call-and-response with the audience.
Thus I was a huge live album fan from my youth and would scoop up any live album by a band I liked. Then around 2005 or so I was looking through my collection and realized most live albums from 1985 forward was the just the band playing the songs as they appeared on the studio album and not sounding as good. Rarely did the live version deviate or improve upon the studio version. This is partly because studio production techniques simply couldn't be replicated live.
But it was also a reflection that bands had become less adventurous and audiences expected to hear songs they knew and how they knew them. Yeah, jam bands would still stretch things out but if you attended a concert by just about any mainstream rock band in the last 30 years they basically did a greatest hits show with the songs played exactly how they're heard on the studio version. THe last live album I can think of that really swapped things up was Alice In Chains Unplugged, where playing acoustically changed the overall experience of the songs. Of course Layne was practically unconscious and doesn't deliver a powerful vocal performance but it's still good.