I posted this today at the guns site, mygnr. After several pages, thy gave me my walking papers. We'll give it a try here.

I honestly believe that Robin either left the band un-amicably, or was fired by Axl himself. Naturally, Axl wouldn't admit to either of these things, because both accusations would only further paint him the bad guy. The media would eat it up. 'Oh look, another guitar player left the band because he couldn't stand being around Axl's ass anymore.' Or perhaps a headline that reads: 'Axl Rose fires another guitar player for not doing his bidding.' Obviously, neither headline would help Axl efforts to go out and grab some cash this summer. Instead, it looks "friendlier" if Axl just gives us that "he'll always be a member of the guns family" jive.

IMO, Robin may have been offered a higher share of royalties by Axl just to keep his mouth shut. Let's face it, you couldn't blame Robin if he took the bait. It's not like there was any real demand for him to stay, nor will there be for him to ever come back. He doesn't need Axl. He's got a successful thing going being Trent's guitar player at the moment. And like most battered women, the 'leave with whatever you can get and go' mentality most likely would apply in this case as well.

Imagine if Robin would have spoken out about his decision to leave and basically re-iterated what the alumni (Slash, Izzy, Duff, Steve) had all said. That would have been a huge blow to Axl. Especially considering the guy was hand selected and put on the payroll by Axl himself. It's damning enough that 80% of the original alumni all told the same story, 2 employees (Gilby, Matt), and countless producers and execs. But members of Axl's hand selected "inner circle"? It would pretty much seal the deal that the last 80-100 fans on this earth would have to accept what the rest of the fanbase realized many, many moons ago.