Ouch.  I wonder how one of them managed to survive the fall.

I wouldn't advertise 3 out of 5 on the album cover as a marketing tool, but that's probably a fair rating.  Who thinks it would be 2 or 2 1/2 out of 5 minus Axl?

Even the quote that seems to slam the door isn't complete.  I think if he really felt that Axl respected him, he'd do a reunion tomorrow.  He's just being realistic because that isn't going to happen.

OK - I'm going to give you MY interpretation of what Slash wrote in the book.  This is how I read it and it may not be how it was intended to be taken.  (/disclaimer)

Axl and the rest of the band rarely hung out together post AFD tour.  The band fired Steven and also fired their manager.  Slash was given the responsibility to replace Steven, Axl replaced the manager with Doug Goldstein (an Axl yes man).  Axl contacted the rest of the band through Doug and did not speak to any of them directly.  Izzy kept his distance from everybody as he didn't want to be around the drinking and drugs and eventually quit after one of Axl's temper tantrums onstage.  He finished out that leg of the tour after quitting and that was that. 

Axl tried to force Dave Navarro on the rest of the band and made Slash try to audition him a 4th time after Dave failed to show 3 other times.  Eventually Gilby was hired.  Axl was blowing money like crazy - Slash estimates 80% of the money they made from that tour was blown on the tour with the extra musicians, the parties Axl hired his brother and sister to host at every show, and all the other excess things Axl wanted on their days off.  The last leg of the tour was scheduled only because they were low on cash and had to strip down the show so they could make a profit.

When the time came to do the next album, Gilby was fired by Axl without telling anybody and Huge was brought in.  They went along with it until Slash found out that Axl had Huge re-record Slash's parts note for note.  Slash decided that was it and called Doug to tell him he quit and hung up before Doug could respond.  Duff left shortly afterward and Matt was fired for defending Slash when Axl badmouthed him.

There are other details if you read the book, but that is the gist of Slash's version of events.  Slash mentions several times that this is his version of how things went down adn he's sure Axl has his own version that is just as true in his mind as Slash's is in his mind. 

The one thing that he unintentionally makes clear to me at least is that neither of them are telling the whole truth, just the truth from their own perspective (which we kind of knew, but they've never admitted).  I'm sure Axl feels he had good reasons for staying away from the band and I'm sure the band felt justified in their stance against Axl.  Either way, it's kinda fucked up that it ever got to that point without ANYBODY being strong enough to stop it before it got out of control.

As stated earlier, this is just my opinion and I am loosely interpreting the only opinion that we have out there at this time.  (/disclaimer II)

James answered the original question for me (thanks James). 

I don't think anybody is saying there's something wrong with what they are doing by copying other trends.  Very few artists are truely groundbreaking.  I think the problem is copying trends when they are already a little aged, then waiting 10 more years to think about releasing them. 

As for the old band copying Aerosmith and the Stones, of course they did to some extent.  The difference is that when they played, you knew it was them playing even without Axl's voice.  They combined those styles and made it their own.  I don't hear any style of their own with the new band, especially without BH.  I hear a bunch of different styles thrown together for the sake of throwing them together.  That's fine, but it isn't groundbreaking.  There's no direction, nothing to build a foundation of their own off of.  Even with the bloated songs of UYI, you still have DTJ, Locomotive, YCBM, etc that let you know this was still the same band and tied it all together.