i agree to an extent and you make a couple good points

but the band/axl part of the promo (interviews and appearances)may be the most important part. a lot of people saying the music sucks are also basing it on one mediocre single (chinese democracy)that sounds about as far from the gnr they know as any other song on the album.

gnr became a joke before this album was released, you can't deny that people wrote this off before hearing it.

i don't think this was the result of ego as much as axl trying to make a more modern sounding album (shorter solos and less riffs)

me too

in a perfect world, axl just dumped all of the songs he is most happy with or are most complete or simply held on to the unreleased songs he thought the good old boys could make their own and are in the studio right now, finishing a new album that they have been working on for some time.

or......... the rumored non-best buy version of cd does exist and is a retooling of cd made by original gnr for original gnr to tour behind.

all pipe dreams, yes

but i dare to dream

supposedly, negotiations were finished in '06 but cetain people got cold feet. if this is true, although additional negotiations would certainly take place due to the different times, i don't think years would be necessary to work out a reunion. if the reports are true, the fact that all sides are admitting that they are interested in the reunion is a big step.

it gives speculative perspective to the merck firing. he said the album would drop without much word (not an exact quote). axl claimed that this was unnacceptable and cited it in his letter announcing his termination. yet, in the end, this type of release is essentially what happened in '08. we all know how little promo the cd received. it's ironic since everyone was up in arms when they heard about merck's release strategy and didn't beleieve anyone would think that was a good idea. well, here we are with an album that isn't bign promoted, and we see it wasn't a good idea. comon sense prevailed. 

perhaps a reunion was meant to piggy back the album release in '06 but things didn't materialize. merck wasn't able to get axl what he wanted out of the deal and so the reunion talks broke down and cd's release, which seemed certain to happen at the time, became a casualty. i find it very possible that axl has taken another crack at it and negotiations have long been underway.  a reunion could very well be just around the corner.

o.k. a simple 'wrong would have done just fine but..............