I just find it incredibly sad that the same people that think the axetinguisher was OP think that demoman's offensive potential is a-ok at the moment. If you were ever killed by an axt-wielding pyro that you were aware of, you were bad, no excuses. Pyro has no way to approach the opponent, and everyone can outdamage them from a distance. If you were ambush by an axt pyro, you would be dead regardless if any other class found you. It really was not broken except for people that couldn't shoot pyros while they ran towards them with a melee weapon equipped.
The nerf to demo was a bit extreme, yeah, but he still has the privilege of being able to deal reliable damage (40-60 airbursts post-nerf) outside of pretty much every other class' comfort zone. But was the axt stronger than the SL? Absolutely not. Again, this is moot because I don't even use the axt, but it's a matter of principle. Even though he wields a primary that is weaker than literally everything else (including the SYRINGE GUN), pyro still has to deal with some of the strongest hate in the game. You just said so yourself..."crits/combos are broken, airblast is broken", w+m1 is often lambasted as "skilless" when no class in the game can kill anything without walking forward and pressing m1.
Defenders of the sticky launcher un-nerf like to point to a commentary where the devs said "we wanted the sticky launcher to be used as both an offensive and defensive weapon". There's also a commentary where they said pyro is intended to be the strongest close-range class in the game. I agree, not all classes should be equal at everything. Pyro just needs to have something that they are better than anybody else in the game.