I think the whole thing boils down to this..

What made AFD so perfect was that everybody was collaborating in a group situation on most songs but knew their true role in the band and stuck to it.
Sure, everybody put their spoke in but at the end of the day and the engine ran best when Izzy gave Axl the musical playing field to sing on, Axl nailed the vocals,  Slash wrote the guitar lines, leads and solos and Duff and Steve nailed down the groove beneath the whole thing.

Things started to go to shit when members wanted to expand their roles into other people's areas. The main players were showing up with completed songs  wanting them done a certain way and in a certain style. Both Axl and Slash got at Izzy for his 'sloppy' guitar stylings on the UYI sessions . Axl was hiring and firing band members and management at will which further undermined the band and eroded the gang ethos they had so strongly sworn by as the key to their staying together.

For me, the power plays that both men orchestrated in the past have not done either any favours. For all Axl's bullshit about his big new direction; after a decade of work 80% of the CD song structures sound like they could have been recorded very quickly by the old band in 1993. Slash's new album (from what I have heard so far) also sounds very '90's to me.  Both men appear to be stuck with writing situations that frankly just don't drive them enough to raise the bar anymore.

That's not to say I don't very much enjoy what both men have done (I will own both CD and Slash's album by next week) but sadly they have  proved themselves to be a lot more average than they would ever like to admit when left to lead things themselves.

The thing that gets me is why is that such a problem for either of them to see? Its very rare for band members do better when solo than with their old band, especially white male singers (I'm looking at you Misters Cornell, Corgan and Osbourne).

Bono (for all his ego) was never stupid enough to ditch the golden chariot that is his band to seek the blaze of glory alone. For all his strutting he seems to know his place far better than one or two of our heroes.

I agree Metallex. The sad reunion dreaming old fuck in me thinks when he sings 'when they try to complicate you but you left it all behind' i swear to God its about as close as I will ever get to hearing Axl sing over Slash's guitar before I die...
he's not a patch on Axl of course but I bet the studio version will slay..

loads of us showing our age

That last tour may come about like Jackson's did. Money shortages.
Get back with the old gang, swallow your pride, make a squidillion dollars and then disappear..