Vale wrote:

They should have gone with Franky Perez and stopped playing GN'R songs. Sure losing Scott was a major setback, but with Perez they could have released new stuff without drama and started building up their audience again. Didn't they tease the third record being way heavier? That would have been a good place to start..
The songs Kushner eventually released with Perez that I assume were intended for VR sounded promising...

Nah, Perez is – with the best will in the world – a middle-tier talent. Scott had incredible stage presence, charisma to burn and a lyrical songwriting touch. It takes something special to follow that up, and I think the VR guys realised that the people they were auditioning didn't measure up. Or if they did (Chester, etc) they were already in major bands and weren't available.

We can exclude all fan speculation and theories and  there's still evidence...

Both Weiland and Halfin said it was on like Donkey Kong. This wasn't said with hindsight...they said it summer/fall 2005.

There was also rumblings of Download 2006 being headlined by a reunited GNR.

There was also that show the Stones wanted a reunited GNR to open for....which is conveniently dropped after we find out it's new GNR.

Various dots connected by fans...

Odd timing of the canceled 2 disc GH.

The logos/banners promoting 2006 tour revolved around old band photos/logos.

The fact that in the weeks leading up to Hammerstein, the two slots that Slash and Duff would be in are conveniently open til the last second.

I also don't think Izzy being on standby is a coincidence either. Whatever went down between Slash, Duff, and Axl didn't involve him.

Vale wrote:

Sky Dog wrote:

Tommy said there were 22 other finished songs.

I’ll take Atlas as far as songs that we know have lyrics. I may commit suicide if they release OMG again!

When did he say that? I must have missed that interview.

Tommy quotes on the subject. Took awhile to find it....

Stinson says that there's "a bunch" of GNR material written and still waiting to be recorded -- "some of it worthy of finishing, some of it probably not" -- in addition to 22 songs recorded during the "Chinese Democracy" process that were not included on the album

...

"There's some stuff with lyrics, some without," he says. "We did a lot of stuff that was supposed to be on Chinese Democracy – the record was meant to be more than one disc, but after spending so much time on it we just had to put an end to it.

There's also stuff that was held over from the original lineup] before they all disbanded, so there's some stuff that should someday see the light of day."