I don't think they have lost their way...
I am pretty sure that Pixar can do much more in terms of stories and ideas, but is owned by Disney (the queen of "making a movie simply for the profit" as you say in the first post)... they don't have exactly the freedom they need to release better products.
By the way, I think a lot of movie companies have the issue of running out of ideas. There are a lot of sequels/prequels/spinoffs/remakes etc. that aren't even that good, or simply useless.
Unfortunately, money is more important than ideas, so why try to do something new when you can pick some already known characters and put them into a "new" movie? Less risks, more money. Who needs new ideas when the old ones still work so well?
This is not a good thing for cinema, and art in general. Probably if the audience starts to avoid watching the 7th remake of the same thing, probably we could see some new ideas, too. And more quality in the storylines.
Coco was good, by the way. In terms of graphics and animation, it's impressive. The story was nothing special, but it has some parts that are very sad, especially near the end, where you probably will shed a tear (ok, a lot of tears )
The worst choice in the movie? To put a 25-minutes long mini movie of Frozen. Impressive but a bit too long (and boring). I prefer Pixar's 5-minutes shorts.