I get that, and while not all metal sounds the same obviously, if you take 8-10 of the main metal bands of the 80's and put them in a playlist with a bunch of Queensryche songs from the 80's (even the most rocking ones) and put them on a shuffle, it really stands out how metal Queensryche really wasn't. A friend of mine did this years ago when making a metal playlist and ended up taking all of the Queensryche songs off of it because they, in his words, clearly were not metal. And I had to agree after being at his house once when he had it on and he was curious what I thought, and after a bit I was like, "yeah, everything else sounds metal, but Queensryche really doesn't."
The most metal thing about them really was Tate's vocals. If you listen to the music, there is not much metal really at all. Brief moments here and there, yes, but it's way more hard rock than metal, IMO.