The problem is they've shot their bolt as far as publicity is concerned by drip-feeding tracks with no sign of an album on the horizon. They should've just worked up all the available tracks, recorded a few more written with Slash and Duff, who are riff machines, and blasted an album out, with Hard Skool as the first single, followed by Atlas and Perhaps. Their strategy is baffling to me.

Axl never saw it as a "finished" release, the record company effectively jumped the gun, overruled him and pushed a demo out. IIRC they've rehearsed OMG on this tour, and it's one of the tracks that he was tinkering with all through the Chinese Democracy era.

And there's precedent for multiple versions of a track being released; the original release of Knockin' On Heaven's Door on the Days of Thunder soundtrack is subtly different from the version that ended up on Use Your Illusion II.

I dunno, I could see them digging those tracks out of mothballs for a Spaghetti Incident box set and getting Axl to record new vocals. They're clearly not averse to polishing old demos with new material; look at Shadow of Your Love.

Just curious, how many times over the past… 20 years have hardcore fans said "it's over" unless x happens?

Well, they were likely drawn to the band by the curious and unique opportunity to essentially reinvent an iconic band from the ground up. The hook for them was that, if it succeeded, they might become as iconic as the original line-up, potentially displacing them in the same way that no-one remembers the early blues incarnation of Fleetwood Mac with Peter Green. Buckethead and Finck would become the new Slash; Pitman, as a core songwriter, the new Izzy.

But they were up against the headwinds of management and the record company suits, who didn't really want the new band to succeed; they wanted the familiar, safe money-spinner that was Axl and Slash together. And for that period from 2012, when the original band was inducted into the RNRHOF (and it became very apparent that the brand was indelibly associated with Slash, Duff and the original line-up) to 2014, when Duff rejoined the band, it becomes pretty clear that the writing's on the wall. Duff is making inroads with Axl, Bumblefoot and Ashba are wavering, the stars are aligning for Slash to return. Once that happens it's a guarantee that the band is going to do at least a few years of nostalgia touring, because "Axl and Slash" is enough of a draw to bring in the punters; they don't need to release new material for a few years at least.

So Pitman gets annoyed, runs his mouth, and he's out.