For me it makes them very likeable. Every major band has to have their "asshole", or if you'd rather, the "backbone" (since I din't think any of these guys are "assholes" per se; the guy that makes the hard decisions, and pushes the band to the next level when they need it. Maiden: Steve Harris. DT: Mike Portnoy Yes: Jon Anderson U2: Larry Mullen, Jr. Bruce Springsteen: Bruce Springsteen Black Sabbath: Tony Iommi
For Def Leppard, it's Joe Elliott. I got into them with High n Dry, and still wish (a little bit) that they'd kept the harder edges, but they didn't, and yet, I still buy every record, because I feel like they made the commitment. They didn't ditch Rick when he got hurt, they didn't ditch Steve when he was clearly taking his own road, they didn't ditch Viv when he got sick... and yet, they still tour arenas without an album, and when they do put out an album, it still moves a decent number of units (albeit not Hysteria numbers). I dunno; we talk a lot here about "in a perfect world, Stephen Wilson (or insert your own obscure prog musician) would be where Taylor Swift is" and I personally think that's a bullshit argument, but I think Def Leppard is that case. Good guys, decent human beings, and they hit it big without too many compromises (Pyromania and Hysteria are poppier, but I don't view them as "compromises"; in fact, they were pretty big risks at the time).