Are people stuck seeing Dreamworks in their 2005-2007 era?

Stuff like, even after many years since Kung Fu Panda, people are still surprised to see Dreamworks Animation not showing pop-culture references. Or that people somehow forget they did The Prince Of Egypt. Or that they judge with trailers.

And even then, within those dark years, there's a gem called Over The Hedge among Shrek 3, Bee Movie and Shark Tale.

For me at least, Dreamworks seems to be in a transition stage. It seems like a lot of people there really want to move on and make better things, but are held back by suits and investors trying to make sure they hit things they think their target demo are interested in. A really good example of this is HTTYD: It had a really strong emotional plot with 2 intensely interesting main characters, but also a bunch of teenagers who act like what mindless executives think teens act like, dragons that (barring Toothless, who was designed by Sanders) look overly cartoony as if to make sure no child could be scared by them, and a teen romance so awkwardly forced it's an embarrassment and ruins one of the more interesting female characters in Dreamworks catalog (this aspect was thankfully retconned in the series.)

I think the only way Dreamworks can break this stigma is to abandon the notion that their target demo will only like things that pander exclusively to them, and if they just make a good product, people will like it without pop culture references or out of place mall rat teenagers.

The teens are there for the sake of showing that there are other kids outside of Hiccup. If anything I like that approach since I'm tired of "we have this kid main character who we assume is an out of place kid... even though we never see them or we do see them but as generic faces).

Yeah, Dreamworks has come off with enough really great moments that I get the feeling their more idiotic moments are from execs and their almighty focus groups.

Am I the only one that liked Shrek 3?

I really enjoyed How to Train Your Dragon, and Rise of the Guardians looks pretty good too. But if people think Dreamworks is stuck in 2005-07, I think that's more Dreamworks' fault than anything. Prince of Egypt was a long time ago, and most of the rest of the films you mention just didn't get seen by that many people, or if they did, they didn't make much of a lasting impact. Since 2007, they've poured most of their resources into developing franchises (and who can blame them? That's where the money seems to be).