You have a point there and that's the Andrew Eldritch argument, who put his band, The Sisters of Mercy, to an indefinite album strike, making themselves pariahs at the record label industry. He came up with the album a few years later (conveniently while detaching the band from their old label), but no-one bought for their heyday price tag, because the labels saw them as a risk. This was years before Kickstarter and ITunes, so doing an indie release wasn't as given as it is know.

The argument is that the record labels have generally been poor to tender their band since the 70's. Even then, there were bands lacking in income for their hard work and talent, but at least we got loads of good music from major performers. Floyd, Led Zep, Sabbath... There lots and lots of bands around that laid the foundation to the music we've had during GNR's era, and beyond. The overall position of the creative artist as a productive member of society is gaining.

Axl is the ultimate pariah. He led the biggest band in the world, the Geffen darling, to be a Universal nightmare. Uni have been given their share of laughs, since GNR (particularly reunited GNR) is still worthy of doing Big Business. The consensus has always been that his album kept the reunion hostage. Now, there's no album, no reunion, but steady touring. Income. But there are no cards blatantly at the table, no public talk about a new album.

Axl could open the CD vaults at his own expense to edit together an album's worth of solid material. He could even give the best cuts to the live band and have them record their own versions. Put in killer Axl vocals, and you have deal. Get label support for an Internet ad campaign, making fun of yourself and showing off the current live band. Tell Ashba to tell anyone interested there's going to be a new album, with a single out NOW. That would do well enough business and help the CD legacy to be remembered for more than 15 songs in as many years.

Sorry.

We bash Axl for many reasons, most of them valid from a public perspective.
Axl runs GNR, he gets the blame every time GNR blow something up in public.

Beta storms in, steers the HTGTH attitude to worship.
Jarmo runs HTGTH, so Jarmo gets the bashing for it.

Beta has a public event (annually, the only personal one we know of).
We bash the public figure of Beta Lebeis for Team Brazil.

It's not supposed to be taken personally as Beta, but professionally as Beta Lebeis of Team Brazil. You get the distinction?

I haven't bothered with the new Dallas, but I admit that sounds good.

I'm tempted to come across that particular episode, eventually - also I think it's great Ewing got both the reprise and a posthumous tribute there. Hagman was a fine actor and he deserves his legacy.

The precedent to this scenario is called It's Five O'clock Somewhere.

I recall Baz saying that Axl used to look at him work up the crowd (during the 06 tour, maybe) during his set, and that Baz's performance sort of set the bar for Axl himself on the night. I could definitely see that friendly competition thing between frontmen going on there, but that sort of alludes stagefright (or whatever you would call it) would still be an issue with Axl.

Given how he's managed by Team Brazil (as indicated by Eddie Trunk's producer among others), how he's told about interviews at the last minute as he'd otherwise be freaked out for days, etc., I can imagine him obsessing over any given shows production value. The problem seems to be that he often appears to get only so much information beforehand, which can obviously lead to bad judgment. On the other hand, he's the boss of it all in the GNR camp like you said and he can be downright strident if he so chooses - look at the berating Beta and the literal Team Brazil got after they were invited on stage during the latest Rock in Rio. "Whose fault is it?"

A lot of it is Axl's fault in the long count (because he IS the boss of it all in GNR), but he does put forth a good deal of effort once he actually gets on-stage. As long as the performance is good, people do tolerate his shtick more.