sorry, you cant really tear apart music and persons from the glory 1985-1993 GN'R name.
and no, Axl seems to hate Slash so much that he isnt only avoiding him but the old band fans, he aint up for ANY old band related (re-)release or even a thank you-speech at the HOF next by his side. but then he jumped on tour and out of the first 4 songs 3 are from Appetite 
also a no with the Slash parts are changed...come on, do we hear a new SCOM, Jungle, NR-solo or something? any re-played guitar solo has a little different touch and when being playd by another person w. other equipment/set-up it changes a little more, too....but thats just because it hardly is to be played exact the same in a live situation. some other licks...sure, exspecially by Bumble, but they pretty much stick a lot to the Slash/GN'R guitar playing.
I'm just saying music doesn't necessarily tell much about personality. When I heard Slash's parts on GNR songs I never thought: "Well, this reminds me of a poor british lad grown up in a louche Hollywood milieu who's on drugs and should consider to stop drinking and smoking", so yeah, one can seperate music from the personality behind it. I'm perfectly capable of liking music, but disliking the person behind it or vice versa (fyi: with Slash it's neither: the person is fine to me, the music too). And I'm not sure why you think Axl disrespects the old band's releases? He honours Appetite and the Illusions every show. He played with Duff and Izzy. What else can he do? Join the Hall that doesn't respect his opinions (as they ignore to respect his issues with Slash and induct him despite the fact he never wants to be inducted)? Does he have to reunite once to show the people it's possible and than either disappoint the world by getting back to the newgnr or abandonning the current band he likes more than any previous that got him back on track? That's how I see it. I don't say Axl wasn't the reason for the break-up either, but just saying that if he still holds a grudge against Slash (probably for reasons we don't quite know - no one of us was there when it happened), he shouldn't act as if everything is cool (cause when the lie comes out, he'll be the deceiving bad one once again).
And offcourse they don't totally change the Slash tunes (that would be blasphemious and many ways not a good idea), but they mostly got rid of the bluesy-aspect, which has always been kind of Slash's trademark, hasn't it? That's what I meant, although your statement on this isn't totally wrong IMO too.
