Badlands didn't make it because Ray Gillen died. Even though they had problems, I think that the band would have survived for a few years had Ray not been ill.
Vain was, and still is awesome! I remember the "No Respect" disc, and it was fucking wow!!! A few years down the road I found their 2nd disc, paid out the ass for it because it was a Japanese import, and it was worth every penny. Same with the 3rd, still great after all these years. Locate "All Those Strangers" if you can find it. The disc was supposed to be their 2nd one, but label interference scrapped it. Thanks to the internet era this disc can be found easily.
Salty Dog deserved to be huge. Rumor has it that heroin ended their short stint along with the grunge problem stealing some thunder.
Wildside deserved more than they got. Even though they were early 90's, grunge destroyed another otherwise promising career.
There are tons of bands out there that deserved so much more than they received...Fastway, White Lion, Dirty Looks, etc...