re: Why was John Brady fired?

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Was this basically a Coach O fall from glory type thing or just how the cookie crumbled? Anyone who remembers that era please feel free to fill me in

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It was more the opposite of the Coach O situation, honestly.

As stated above, Brady was gruff and unpleasant, and rubbed people the wrong way. The Powers That Be here didn't like that, much like they didn't like Saban telling them to frick off. But Brady didn't have Saban-level of success, so he didn't get the same immunity from boosters that Saban did. They waited for him to have a drop-off, and canned him with the quickness when he did.

About recruiting; much has been made of the Collis Temple AAU ties (getting all those local guys), but he recruited well enough in my opinion. The first batch (2000 team) had Stromile Swift, Jabari Smith, Ronald Dupree.
He had the following:
SEC Player of the Year- 2000 Swift, 2005 Brandon Bass, 2006 Glen Davis.
SEC Freshman of the Year: Bass 2003-4, Davis 2004-5, Tyrus Thomas 2005-6.

You also had other top local guys like Tasmin Mitchell, who was supposed to be elite (Parade All American 1st Team, etc), but was "merely" very good... and he might have been the reason for Brady's demise.

Tasmin was intended to be the centerpiece of the 2007 team. But he got hurt 3 games into that season and missed the year. LSU had a bad year, Brady got fired. Tasmin came back the next year, and playing alongside Marcus Thornton (2008 POTY) and Garrett Temple, LSU went 27-8 and won the SEC at 13-3.

That was Trent Johnson's first season, and we all thought/expected he would continue Brady's run, and that LSU was firmly established as a Top 20 team (kinda like football, hey anyone can win here).
We wuz wrong

You could say we're still paying for the arrogance of firing a coach that got us to the Final Four, because 'we can do better'.