Top 40 is all that matters.  Charting on Adult Contemporary isn't success.  Modern "rock" songs end up on the Top 40 chart - it's not an unreasonable expectation.

Edit: Let's put it this way...I didn't check the Top 40 chart for VR, but I know TLF was on the VH1 countdown for a few weeks, so it's likely it was somewhere on that chart.  Libertad (by most accounts) was a piece of shit, but TLF had some limited commercial success.  I would expect it to at the very, very least surpass anything VR did since the general concensous is VR sucks.

Oh really?  Please explain.  Even supporters of the song have a hard time saying it's going to be commercially successful, so what do you know that nobody else does? 

The closest I've seen anybody come to actually making a case was asking how I defined comercial success.  For the record (don't think I ever answered the question) my definition of commercial success is living up to the GnR name.  What did they acheive in the past?  I don't expect a #1 song (from any of their songs), but I would expect them to make the top 20 and stay there for awhile (not just a brief appearance the week the song comes out).  I don't think that's unreasonable.

You're 0 for 3 so far...not a great start.

I agree, but I've said several times that solo BH is great, GnR BH not so much.  Being in a band like GnR limits BH's biggest strengths, which is why people think all he does is play really fast and he has no emotion.  I thought that before hearing a larger sampling of his solo stuff (thanks to the help me get into BH thread).  While I have a new found respect for BH and while he delivers some quality moments, him being in GnR was a bad match for both sides.  It was wasted talent (and time) for him and just not the right fit for GnR in a 3 man setup. 
I wonder if I'd feel differently had it been Robin (or Richard) and BH instead of 3?  Maybe he'd have had a better opportunity to show his other styles?  Maybe Axl pigeon-holed him just like a lot of fans have as a one trick pony?

Not harder to hate.  Why argue a point that will be proven shortly?  Shackler's chance of commercial success = .0000000000000000000000000000001%

I didn't bring up Slash, but ignorance is the only reason for not understanding why he gets brought up.  The Slash calls come because he's not only the only lead guitarist to ever appear on a GnR album, he is also the man responsible for the musical sound of GnR.  He has a distinct playing style that will never be dated because the blues will never go away.  I played Messages for a friend who didn't have the song or know who it was and he knew within 10 seconds that it was Slash before any of the singing came in.  How many guitarists have that happen?

It's comical that Slash is "dated" and hasn't done anything since leaving GnR, yet his peers admire him and he is sought out to do guest performance after guest performance over guys that have more technical ability all the time.  Technical ability doesn't mean shit if you can't produce music that people want to listen to.  I get that some of you love BH, but what you seem to fail to grasp time after time is that the general public and the music industry prefer a guy like Slash over him almost every time.  Quit hating on the guy because he's more popular than the guy you prefer could ever be...it reeks of jealousy.  BH is great at what he does and I really like a lot of his solo stuff, but the only solo of his that works in the leaks is the end of TWAT, and you can't even hear most of it.  I haven't looked into it that carefully, but on the surface that solo sounds pretty blues based...interesting.

BBF once said that he was going to sleaze up some of the new songs to sound more like GnR...why do you think that is?  He's not doing it because it's his style.  Even he knows what everybody else seems to be ignoring.