love it love it love it, to be honest i not that into british steel, try sad wings of destiny and my favorite defenders of the faith, true balls to the wall british metal from 1984! and if you seen the movie rock star you will know what i mean (loosely based on judas priest)
love all genres from sabbath through to nwobhm to thrash death metal, black etc.
metal does indeed have the most loyal fan base from the music to the look and beyond, as it's origins and now very underground still for alot of subgenres.
it's extreme, that's why i love goa/psy so much and others (hard house/trance) just full on and thrash it, it's a great way to let out aggression and built up angst, and often touches on subjects others won't, but are so relevant to what's going on, especially for young people, its melodic as hell, and the most successful artists such as priest and my favorite of all time iron maiden care about their fans!
i would check out this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Evolution
by far the best doco ever done on metal, so dam researched it's rediculous, sam dunn is the man, and should have a doctorate!