I ask each of you to think hard.........about how many times you have actually been stopped dead in your tracks by a piece of music. Walking through the house while the stereo (record player?) was playing; driving down the road......and hearing one of those songs that just floors you.
Few have done that to me. The Beatles......Gary Moore.........Eddie Van Halen. Vai may have more training; may even have more skill. I take nothing away from his playing.........but he has never moved me like Eddie has. As has been pointed out above, Eddie Van Halen almost single-handedly revived the rock genre.
Sammy Hagar........hell, I've followed his career since his early work with Montrose. He's twice the singer David Lee Roth is. Roth has talent, but he's the perpetual rowdy teenager. Hagar brought a sense of maturity to the band's music.......and some balls to their vocals. Roth preened; Hagar just rocked. The differences in their music with Hagar were profound, and their CD's / records were far less schlocky than with Roth. Face it; listen now to some early Van Halen stuff.........take out Eddie's incredibly game guitar work........and you have a lot of dreck.
No, this is a damned fine lineup of musicians, and I'm glad they're going to go at it again.