The numbers are great, no doubt, but this is their only shot at the sold out stadiums. They will be an arena act next time around, which is nothing to sneeze at, but this will be their biggest pay day.

Most fans hated it? Not sure I agree with that.

When you say "fans" are you saying people who liked Guns in the 80s/early 90s, moved on like the rest of the world, and didn't even know Axl was doing his own thing? People like that already had their mind made up regardless of what the album sounded like (same with the HTGTH forum junkies, but vice versa).

The overall sentiment, I would say almost universally, is "It's a pretty good album but didn't live up to the wait. Oh and it's overproduced."

It certainly didn't make the label any money as you said, but the brand value sank not because of Chinese Democracy, but a combination of a revolving cast of musicians, going on stage late, cancelling shows/tours, and an often times apathetic frontman.

Long ago an announcement like this would get me hard. I remember where I was when I read the announcement on HTGTH about playing RIR4...

I'm not sure the back injury is really what did him in. In fact, I'm not sure he was ever seriously considered for the gig.

In an interview with Eddie Trunk this past week, he says he only rehearsed twice and it was only with Slash and Duff:

If they were serious about him, he would have rehearsed with the whole band. I think they just wanted to test him out to see if he could even handle a guest spot.

I was being facetious.