To be fair, DJ has never written with someone even close to Axl's talent before. 

If I had to take a guess I'd say the current lineup will make a more straight ahead hard rock album that the general public claims to want from Guns.  It will be interesting to see what happens.

Ron laid down parts on all of the existing CD era tracks back in 2006 or 2007 (can't remember which year exactly)

The CD era stuff has been done for a long time.  Maybe they had DJ play on some of the tracks in the past 3 years (including last year). 

Also, re-recording peoples parts doesn't mean they won't get paid.  They still get paid as songwriters which is where the vast majority of the royalties come from anyway.

OK, so he didn't show up because of Slash.  The original letter was fairly clear that he didn't show because the results of him showing/no showing were going to be negative in one way or another, that he had no desire for a reunion performance with the old band, ever, even in a one off setting, etc. 

I think it's outlined pretty clearly in the first letter even if he didn't flat out say "I'm not coming because of Slash"

Roger Waters and Paul McCartney skipped their induction ceremonies because of feuds with their former bandmates as well.  It's not exactly unprecedented.

Rather than try to diagnose Axl with a specific disorder I think it's probably best to just take a look at him as a product of personality and circumstances

-Had a traumatic childhood fraught with abuse

-Is by nature a quiet and shy person

-Due to a combo of natural personality and childhood has tremendous insecurity, trust issues and sensitivity to criticism

-Went from being a nobody to being one of the biggest rock stars of all time within a 4 year span

So you have a guy who is unstable, emotionally vulnerable, and extremely talented who managed to go from zero to the top of the world within 4 year largely as the "brains" behind the operation (forget the Chinese Democracy debacle and remember that he largely "called his shot" and was the de-facto leader of the band from 86-89 when their meteoric rise occurred)

Following this you had a guy who was unstable, emotionally vulnerable, extremely talented AND who had the wealth and record sales to do whatever the hell he wanted, AND believed that his success was strictly the product of his own talent and "vision"

So when everyone quit and he was feeling completely betrayed and at this point was massively criticized by the media/general public, he also thought he knew it all because he had been the leader of a band that went from zero to legend in four years

At the end of the day you have a guy believes he is 100% right and extremely talented but has to reconcile that with the fact that he is reviled by the public and the media, and cannot understand or accept the negativity

What he needed to do from day one when he decided to continue GNR without Slash & Co. was give a double middle finger to everyone and bask in the publicity (negative and positive) surrounding the new band

He should've gone on TV and told everyone he was the genius behind Guns N' Roses, and that Buckethead was a better guitarist than Slash, and that he did not give a flying fuck whether anyone accepted him using the name, it's his band name and it's his decision and people can either accept it or go fuck themselves.  Instead he continued the band with little to no defense, and the negative festered.  He was an easy target because he never defended himself.  And as the timeline started to become ludicrous the criticism and negativity surrounding the album only grew.  Then the 2002 VMAs occurred and that was the death knell.  If the 2006 or 2009 Axl had showed up with the 2002 band they would've blown the doors off the joint and he would've been at worst grudgingly accepted and possibly showered in praise.  But he showed up out of shape and covered in jerseys and dreads and Botox and got killed

The sad irony is that he could've released mostly the same album in 2003 with the same people who actually made the music, and when the music industry was still in decent shape, and achieved some success which would've led to further album rather quickly.  Instead he released an album that never had a chance to succeed (at least in the US) and now has no backing from the label for future releases

The thing that most people don't realize, however, is that out of the infamous $13 million, the old Geffen Records handed out $10 million of that back in 1997.  That label got swallowed up by UMG/Interscope in (I believe) 1998, no later than 1999.  The people who greenlit CD with the exorbitant budget were long gone by the time the first version of the album was complete

Also, he was not given the biggest budget ever for CD.  Mariah Carey signed a 4 album $80 million contract with Virgin.  Her first album tanked and they spent $28 million to buy her out.  So essentially they paid $48 million for one album that flopped

Michael Jackson's Invincible cost over $30 million in recording costs alone.  A lot of big pop artists get $10 million advances (or at least they did back in 1997). 

Either way, there's not much indication that Jimmy Iovine and his regime cared much about CD, and you can't really blame them.  It wasn't their album, or their problem.  They didn't greenlight it or hand out the huge advance, the fired execs of a dead label did.  So to them it was never a priority, they were interested in their own projects which is the way record execs always have been and always will be.   Which is why they probably just wanted to get the album out and make as much as they could without spending anything

From an accounting standpoint, it was a success.  From that perspective, revenues generated were much greater than cost of goods sold and they didn't have to spend any money promoting it domestically.