To be fair to certain parties at Sony, I know some individuals who were there when the last studio album was released with Steve Perry, who did make some effort to promote the band in rather 'difficult' circumstances.
I think the problem was that the UK side weren't prepared to spend a great deal of money on promoting a band who were allegedly unwilling at the time to tour the country or, indeed, visit the UK for press. And getting press interest from any publications other than the melodic rock 'fanzine' (how a major label views such publications) end of the market was nigh on impossible. The 'majors' certainly weren't interested, whether it was a reunion record with Perry or not.
Like you Surfpunk, I will be very interested to see what approach is taken with the brand new record in September.