Walleris and others have already explained it quite well I think and I agree with their assessment.

One point though mentioned in the original post - this charade of ''touring a new album to promote it''. Jon does kid himself with this justification to get back out on the road and he uses this as a defence to deflect the 'nostalgia' attacks from the critics.. he/they throw out a mediocre record and use as an excuse to tour, even though we're now down to, what, only 3 new songs in the setlist? Hardly promoting the album much is it. They know most want the older stuff.

If this 'touring to promote' actually worked for Bon Jovi, they would be selling a shit load more copies of WAN, but they are not. If even a fraction of the audiences from this world tour they are currently playing to actually *owned* the new album as a result of actually being interested in the new output from the band, then they would by definition be considered more current and relevant, as well as riding high in the charts for more prolonged periods like they used to.

But a lot of older acts are like this. Every act has its glory days, so in a funny way, anything after that highpoint could be considered nostalgic when they revisit it.

Andi