And to be fair, Empire was a natural progression for the band. They could have done what most expected and followed up Mindcrime with another truly metal album with another concept. But they hit the brakes and embraced a warmer, bigger sound, and some of their other influences outside of metal.
I think what I respected about Queensryche during that period was that it was apparent that while a turn toward mainstream was partially generated because of the time period (pretty much all heavy bands put out that more mainstream record from 1990-1993), there was also that whiff of integrity about them that they weren't JUST doing it because of that. You could believe them (unlike Metallica and some other bands) when they said it was just a natural progression.
I think the continued evolution of Promised Land proved that. Every single Queensryche record from the original lineup sounded different than one another. You can't say that of bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Def Leppard (keep adding bands). Queensryche consciously never did any retreads.
With Promised Land, Queensryche could have easily made Empire 2 and continued to go mainstream. But they didn't. They did the complete opposite of what was expected of them, doing a dark, introspective, more Floydian sounding record, when the lure of doing a mainstream or grunge record was there.
QR bucked the trend, and frankly, I respect the hell out of the original lineup for doing that at that particular time, given their mainstream success with Empire.