Our heroes sound awesome whether playing through a massive stage rig or a little combo amp. They key to their sound is not the gear but them, the player themself.
I mean, think about it; Brian May mostly played through little amps on Queen stuff it it sounds awesome..because of Brian.
I remember Leslie West said that tone starts at the fingertips.
Think about Yngwie, as Chris said, he has a style. In the 80's there was a shredder on every street corner. Most did not translate. Yngwie did. Why? He was identifiable. He had a thing. Same with George Lynch, he very much had a unique style and people gravitated. Could they shred? Yep. But they had their own thing too.
Honestly, it's why I stopped bothering with the whole sweep arpeggio thing in the 80's. For me, it was cool as a guitar player but rarely did I think it added to the song unless it was done extremely well. It didn't have a payoff for me. So, I focused on growing the breadth of knowledge....
No doubt, I did practice my shred runs and got pretty decent at it but always rooted in two things...a blues pentatonic base (one of the best guitar player I pretty much knew said 'like it or not, the average listener's ear likes the pentatonic...it's pleasing') and melody. I could play fast and clean but without really have a sense of melody, why would it matter.
...and now ends my thoughts :)