I'm not sure they have done a particularly bad job with EMT - they've just not done much that stands out as being particularly innovative or good, but my experience is they've kept the existing trains running
Well, there's been an improved service to Matlock (clock face hourly, rather than the irregular service under BR/ Central Trains), with through services to Nottingham (rather than terminating at Derby)...
...double the frequency from Nottingham to Newark (allowing Lincoln services to be speeded up and providing through services from Derby to Newark)...
...four extra 156s which have allowed the capacity from Nottingham - Sheffield - Manchester - Liverpool to be doubled...
...a fifth London service per hour, with the opening of the Corby branch (which has allowed speeding up of services from London to Leicester/ Derby/ Nottingham)...
...four relatively young 222s acquired from Hull Trains...
...double the frequency from Sheffield to Leicester/ London...
...put InterCity trains on ex-Provincial services to deal with busy periods (222s to Liverpool on Grand National days, HSTs to Skegness on summer weekends, HSTs to Lincoln for the December Markets)...
...five HSTs have recently arrived from Grand Central...
...so not
too bad. Especially bearing in mind how bad a hand they were dealt with the demise of Central Trains (e.g. five coach 170s on Nottingham - Liverpool services moved to LM to shuttle around on shortish routes like the Chase, whilst Nottingham - Liverpool got two coach 158s instead - people forget how far we've come).
They've ignored the extremities of the network (and the HSTs could do with an upgrade - unless you like the 1970s feel they have!), but then the Lincolnshire stuff is never going to generate much return without heavy subsidy, and there's no PTE or WAG-equivalent to throw cash at that. Crewe to Stoke seems underserved, but the hourly London Midland (LNW) service saw a huge increase in capacity there. Generally though, the ex-Provincial parts of the franchise fared no better/worse than most of the ex-Provincial parts of GWR/ W&B/ Northern etc over a comparable period - some rejigging of timetables, a little extra stock but no brand new trainset to play with.
Generally when franchises see massive improvements its because of one of
a. the franchise is profitable so it's worth investing in
b. there's a strong local government representation willing to throw large sums of money at it
c. things have got so bad that Something Must Be Done (Northern's Pacers, LTS's Misery Line, Merseyrail's 1970s fleet)
...none of those is the case with EMT - it's a franchise bang in the middle of the country and bang in the middle of the spreadsheet - not lucrative enough to warrant massive private investment, no so subsidy-dependent to require generous public sector funds. That'll be the same for whoever wins it - I don't think it'll be enough of a political "hot potato" to get much attention - it's not "London" enough to get London amounts of money thrown at it and it's not far enough away to generate the kind of "local pride" that you'd get in a franchise serving the west country/ wales/ north/ scotland.
I guess one reason they'll score badly is that they focused too much on the everyday clock face railway at the heart of the TOC and didn't have lots of quaint "Yarmouth to Barmouth" routes like Central Trains provided - so Skegness gets a more robust service to Nottingham under EMT but the ability to get a through service to Crewe isn't there any more - which I know some enthusiasts like.