Reading that missive, I'd say there was a whole lot of snow going thru his head at the time. But that's the thing with Axl: with most anyone else you could say it was the coke, but with him.. well he just might be like that without the drugs.

I kind of miss angry Axl to be honest.
The fire's gone out..

How could he be clueless about the atmosphere within the band? I doubt that. I doubt it's even possible. Even when he wouldn't show up I'm sure he had sources whispering to him what was going on. Hell I can imagine him spying on the sessions with bugs & hidden cameras - except he prob was too distracted playing videogames with fernando to be bothered too much. He may have been aware, just incapable or ill-equipped to manage the band.
He alluded to this when asked about the Chinese-era lineups, didn't he? Where he said about he likes there to be tensions amongst the personalities & that atmosphere will reflect in the music..?? Something along those lines anyway.

If apex-twins analysis is correct however (& in fairness it usually is), then it is still bewildering & still mind blowing how the enterprise spiralled out of any semblance of normality when Slash wouldn't simply "play ball". Mind blowing how one piece/person caused the whole thing to effectively collapse*.
I can see that being the case, I'm just not sure I buy it 100%. But maybe it is a case of Occam's razor & I'm looking for complexities that didn't really exist, or were fabricated by the myth.

*Im not blaming Slash, rather the ill communication/breakdown of the Axl-Slash relationship. How losing Slash derailed the whole thing.

Funny that note about the "Psuedo Studio Musician Work Ethic". Duff explicitly details Axl's working hours as his reason for walking away. Can quite easily imagine Slash being pissed off for similar reasons while the other guys, like apex says, were all Axl's employees & obviously more willing to live on Axl time.

Which brings me back around to my point about missing angry Axl. Somewhere in the past decade Axl has been tamed & started living on a similar timetable as the rest of society..