should GH been released 1st

Thats a good interview, makes a nice change to hear Tico and Daves side of the story

Great interview, especially this part:

HR: Song Who Says You Can't Go Home is said to exist as a duet with Keith Urban. He is an Australian country-superstar who has great success in US and is a husband of Nicole Kidman.
TT: This version exists and it is really good. We've been speaking about it recently. It could be an interesting bonus for the new compilation we’ve spoken about.

HR: Would it be a compilation of hits since the album These Days?
DB: Sure. Crossroad contains hits from albums Bon Jovi to Keep The Faith. And one of the bonuses was a song Always (laughing).

and

TT: We weren't speaking about a new album at first. We met in Jon's studio to work on some new songs for the new compilation. But everything went so fast and so well, we had many great ideas so we were coming back over and over. The planned compilation seems to be released next year (2010) and we would like to add an official compilation of all our videos up to this day to the package.


So hopefully the upcoming compilation is really a 1 disc compilation of songs starting from "These Days", the WSYCGH version will be the Keith Urban version, and there's a DVD of all their videos from Runaway to Superman Tonight included in the compilation.

That reads Americans only appreciate shit albums to me.
My point is, Bon Jovi's music might not be the same as 15 years ago, but so is everything else. You Give Love A Bad Name would not be the starting point of a phenomenal career if released today. It would dunk.

So, today's sales are not only due to a lost fanbase because of shitty releases. Most of the fans are still fans today. It's the hype that's missing. And that hype does not only come from the quality of the songs - see charts. Time, awareness, generation, attitudes, values, media, etc. play an important role.