I agree with Smoking Guns...if Slash and Duff were so lame and couldn't go to the places Axl wanted to go, why get the new guys to try and sound like them.

I really think that only the drums/loops sound different than what we are used to hearing from GNR.

If you look at reunions that Azoff has put together in the past, he usually locks up the easier party first, or the party that is looking to reunite.

With Van Halen, he locked up Hagar in 2003, and then the band after that.
And began trying to reunite them with the big bucks that a DLR/VH reunion could bring.

Did he manage Velvet Revolver?

Also, pure speculation here:  Slash, Duff, and Co. will want to negotiate from a position of power to try and regain some sort of control of the situation. 

This is where I see the release of Chinese Democracy actually assisting in the reunion.

I believe the other members did not want to do anything which they felt would assist Axl in bankrolling this project and that's why the reunion has been delayed.

Once the album hits, and is less successful sales-wise, (not that I wish the project ill will, it's just common sense) than any thing Guns has ever done before, the band will reunite.

Now that it's out, and how much of a return is diminished by the absence of Slash and Co., it will just a matter of time....{anywhere between 2 and 10 years)

Could I please have my prostate massage?

And, lawd knows how I needs ma period.