[BklynBlue]

[QUOTE=SteveMacD]To be fair, it's been 34 years since Danny was booted from the band. We're fans who listen to the stuff on a frequent basis, and it has stayed with us through the years.

Absolutely. Kirwan and Welch have been ignored because their songs (and the albums that they were on) had no "after-life" -
Their commercial value (please understand this has nothing to do with artistic merit) expired almost upon release.
None of their songs were ever anthologized (outside of The Chain box set) in the States - you never heard them on the radio even when the albums were first released - later, you might have come across "Sentimental Lady" or "Hypnotized" once in a great while, and I do believe I once heard "Bare Trees" played, but that was before all of the radio stations across the nation became strictly formatted.
In thirty years, none of those songs have ever been used on a movie soundtrack, or been covered by another major artist.
There are myriad reasons for this, again, few having to do with the inherent "quality" of the material.
The entire Fleetwood Mac catalog on Reprise, and even Kirwan's solo catalog has laid fallow for no other reason than no one seems to want to bother with it.
I find it very hard to believe that after all this time, no one has been able to license a single song, from any of the albums for a compilation or soundtrack -
if they (whoever holds the rights to this material) had tried, and failed, it would most likely be because no one remembers any of the songs - so those who would have to give the okay for such a deal knew that there would be no great flashback moment where the general public would go "I remember that! I used to LOVE that song! Who was that?"
The albums also never garnered any critical mass either, in the sense that no one that I have ever read has ever championed them in print and tried to bring them to wider attention.
And again, there are people who are paid to plant those seeds, to work the catalog, but it was just not done.
As to the band acknowledging their own past, doing a few of the songs in concert might have been good, maybe got some people there that night to search out the older records, if they remembered the name of the song, but I think a more appropriate approach would have been to have the band record a tune or two for the greatest hits collections - you know, the "new songs" everyone puts on GH albums now so that those who already have everything on there has to buy it anyway?
The royalties would amount to a lot more than a one time performance fee, and their fans would have a chance to really familiarize themselves with the song.

Do I think the current band owes it them to do so? No. Would it have been a nice gesture? Yes. But, we're talking about money and ego and as Steve MacD said, it is called show business for a reason.