I'm highly suspicious of their popularity.
It escapes me how they're so popular..
One of the reasons it irks me to constantly see Dopethrone hailed as of the of "heaviest albums ever!" is, despite the guitar and bass tones, the drums sound like ass and really subtract a few "heavy" points. Not sure if that really had anything to do with the point you were making but I see where your coming from.They sound very artificially heavy to me.
I've always thought Come My Fanatics sounds much heavier than Dopethrone. It's also better imo.
The first two Motley Crue albums (Too Fast for Love and Shout at the Devil) are some great traditional metal records. They pretty much suck after that.