I totally agree with your point about the inner and outer rage thing. Modern metal always seems to be about expressing anger and hate, always written about a sucky childhood, I've been through a lot and I realised when I was 20 that the experiences you go through in life are what make you the person you are today. The problem with inner vs outer rage is indeed that modern metal fans are likely to be violent, I've been to gigs and had far more bruises from the pit than I ever used to get back in the day, I saw slayer when I was 14 and thoroughly enjoyed it, the spirit you got when you were in a large club with several thousand people who all felt the same. I just dont feel that way these days, the singer in my old band was the kind of guy who would mosh just to get in someone's face, and that mindset is becoming more and more widespread.
And kids not knowing where music comes from is criminal, I like most Led Zep tunes, I'm a huge Sabbath fan, and I like the quality songs from pink floyd's back catalogue, I can see the influence and indeed without such hugely influential bands, the music scene of today would be totally different. It's fine that kids dont know about zeppelin and camel, but it's when you tell them and they look at you like a freak that gets me down.
I find I have to go to more and more extreme and obscure lengths to get some originality in the music I want to listen to nowadays, and it didnt have to be that way 10 years ago, you knew the new metallica album would be good, you knew that iron maiden would make a good record, these days that kind of reliability doesnt exist, since the first 'nu-metal' bands came out, around 95, there really hasnt been any musical growth, I stopped buying kerrang around 2 years ago because it stopped having any new original bands featured.
I do agree that there are a few interesting bands around, SOAD are a family favourite, but they're an original sounding band, at least he realises you can actually USE those thin strings...
I cant help feeling jaded by the whole music scene right now, from a guitarists point of view anyway, I guess I should have made that clearer in my original post