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Originally Posted by Mumriken
However I do think with the ages passing some of the loyalty was forgotten, he became more consumed by his own being so to speak.
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This thought struck me as well. It doesn't seem unreasonable to view it as a gradual process: Sauron the loyal lieutenant in the First Age, then in the Second Age despite lacking a master he's still very influenced by Morgoth; he's not yet completely dominated by his own pride. Then by the Third, having expended so much of his own potency on himself and his policies, he's much more self-absorbed - the point at which:
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his plans, the idea coming from his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his will, and an end, the End, in itself ~Morgoth's Ring
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Everything decayed "in the wearing of the swift years of Middle-earth" - even the villains.