He wrote some of the best songs on 'Mind if we make love to you'. Would be a shame if he and the band are no more (figuratively speaking).
I thought the party line was that he went to spend more time with his family. I suspect they thought Nelson was a more dynamic stage presence, which he certainly was!
Mike D'Amico lives in Florida, and did leave due to personal issues. He has a young child and he felt he needed to be home more after his child was born. And living in Florida made rehearsing a big problem too. That was why he stopped touring with BW, there was nothing sinister about it at all that I'm aware of.
Mike is a very accomplished musician, and even more versatile than Nelson in that he also plays guitar and bass as well as all the percussion. As far as stage presence, while he's not quite as animated as Nelson I've also heard him described as the "cute one". So he seems to have some special appeal to some of the women in the audience.
Watch the "Pet Sounds Live" DVD, and you can see a great example of how good Mike was on percussion. In the video the clip of the song "Pet Sounds" was shot when Andy Paley was touring in Mike's spot. For less complex/energetic/demanding percussion Andy did fine. But Scott Bennett had to take the second percussion part (is there anything he can't do, the guy is amazing!) in "Pet Sounds" - whereas Mike handled it very well when he was with the band.
I agree with the second post, he wrote some great songs - Cellophane (from "Bali") and the trio of songs from MIWMLTY are great too - I love "Something I Knew". As far as the 'Mints doing more work together - boy, I hope so! But Darian was quoted as saying the the 'Mints currently "exist more as a concept", I guess that means they simply can't get their own stuff done with all the other work with BW and Darian's work with Disney complicating the 3000 mile distance between band members.