Unfortunately with EA it's not silly to assume they don't have a passion for what they are doing. You can hear it when current devs talk about their games and always comment about how relieved they are that they are done with it. It's also evident in the Tuner system that they integrated into their games. They did that to perfect products after they release them. Care to take a guess how many tuners have been released for Madden since they introduced that concept. Once the game is pressed 99 out of 100 times thats the last you hear from EA. We get two generic patches that fix mostly problems they knew about before launch and then they basically wash their hands of the year and move on. EA just seems to numb really creative and productive people after a year or so of what sounds like them beating their heads against the wall begging for change.
It's like my Bengals use to be. The best players were rookies because they didn't know any better. A year or two in the system they became Bengalized and started playing like all the other cast offs on the roster.
What you don't have to assume is how they feel coming out the door at the end after trying to work at EA. Just take a look at some of the opinions from developers coming out the door, some let go some quit. All have similar thoughts coming out.