I agree with most of your comments war.  Axl did have a vision; it was to move GNR forward into the new millenium past the musical style favored by Slash and others.  That is why he hired Robin Finck, Buckethead, and added another synth guy in Pittman.  The main problem here was the lack of execution.  From the simple task of introducing the new members to the public where they would not be seen as a  old GNR cover band to the recording of the album in a reasonable time period, they failed miserably.  It was a lack of leadership that doomed this era.

I think some of the blame has to go to Doug Goldstein and Merck.  They did nothing to further the recording process--I think this is more true for Goldstein.  It seemed like whenever there was some sort of minor problem--ie. the stuff with the drum sounds--those things would take forever to fix and doom the making of the album.  What GNR needed was a kick ass guy who could get things done and at the same time convince Axl that the world wasn't falling apart when there were problems in the process.  It's a shame that Tom Zutaut got booted in 2002 since it appeared that he had made significant progress in allaying Axl's worries about the album and progressing towards it's long awaited release. 

I'm real interested in seeing if Irving Azoff can coax any new material out of Axl.  Axl seems to trust him and he is a guy that gets stuff done (reunited Eagles album, reunited VH w/ Dave and allegedly an album in the future).

But Roy was fired/dismissed in 2002.  I'm not sure how it would take an additional six years to rework songs that have been written and composed primarily in the 1990s.  I'd chalk this up to Axl being a procrastinator and RTB not helping things with his style.  If he wasn't helping the band why didn't Axl fire him sooner?

I'm thinking about picking this up later on.  You mind giving a review of the game after you've finished ?

Love Shack