I'm not saying he doesn't have a soar throat - I read the title. For people that don't know anything about vocals and rasp singing. Rasp singing is incredibly difficult to do without ruining your voice but to be able to sing like axl for as long as he has is rare and intentional on his part. to be honest axl does and has done so many things bad for his throat (i.e. smoking and drinking) that his singing technique may be flawless for all we know. but, yes, he has had surgeries to repair his instrument as well as the occasional sore throat, which comes with singing clean as well. My theory with the '02 axl is that he was trying to learn how to sing without rasp with the same range for the purpose of either maintaining his voice or for differing artistic direction. the problem with that might have been that once you sing with rasp sometimes you can't go back. so the rest of my theory goes that axl said "fuck it" just be yourself." I haven't seen the last show before the cancelled surprise gig, in which he supposedly sounded like his throat was bothering him so I'll take your word for it.  but the increased rasp in his voice as the tour has gone on is intentional and he hasn't sung with as much power as he did with duff on stage since the last time duff was on stage with him. wow.