The email is easy to understand, as he might be on the road, and have his comics email not on his computer(this happens to me, hence I've a webbox email as well).
I have had the same expericences as you to a degree.
We will have to play wait and see, still... RR doesn't have anymore shares to dish out (where oh where did they all go!), so he's got to do something different now, be a real reporting company for his investors. It's definetly put up or shut up time for him.
imho, Jerome