I was recently rewatching some Hansen vs Predator and realized the arrest teams seemed to take much longer talking to the predator. Some of these investigations seem like they went on for weeks. Takedown episodes seem like they are stings set up over just a few days.

Do you all think this is a change because of the Internet age, just a faster solution, or some other reason?

I think they are missing some of those slow playing predators. I am sure that law enforcement is working on other types of stings. I personally would love to see an episode about the various formats law enforcement uses to catch these predators.

Yeah, it's a shame that we won't get anything like Lorne's phone book of a chat log.

The reason is that in To Catch and HVP, the sting was run by the TV studio with support from law enforcement, but in Takedown, Hanson is embedded in a sting run by law enforcement. They just don't have the time to chat to a pred for weeks on end like PJ/TC used to.

They use the sex work sites because they know the guys are there for sex rather than to groom a kid. I think the guys from takedown deserve everything they get, but they are less scary to me than someone like Sokol or Lorne who really want to control these kids.

Most likely it has to do with legalities and privacy.
I think the police DO interview the creeps in some jurisdictions. but they may not air it because it mirrors Chris's interview.
Also Chris is able to draw out an amazing amount of confessions on video so the cops may not spend a lot of time on on,-scene interviews.