The thing is, a lot of bands these days, especially older ones, basically only release albums as an excuse to tour, and to give people a new reason to see them live. Touring is where bands make most of their money these days, not albums. From their perspective, touring is capitalizing on the new album.
Look at TBA. Their biggest album ever, and they toured the crap out of that album before getting around to recording another album. Seems to have worked for them so far.
Not that I'm arguing that this is my preferred route, as I'm just as interested in a new album.