At the time, the first Rainbow album came as a breath of fresh air, with Deep Purple becoming a bit stale. Also, Elf, in my view, were not great. Burn and Come Taste the Band are good albums (Stormbringer is weak with a couple of standout tracks), but the band were moving further away from being Deep Purple. Black Sheep of the Family always sounded like a Deep Purple song and Quatermass were signed to Purple Records, so it was understandable when Blackmore recorded his own version.
You are right in that Blackmore was attempting to turn back the clock, as he did not like the Glenn Hughes funk element. I think Blackmore's Rainbow is a consistently strong album which took me back to the days of Machine Head. Man on the Silver Mountain became Blackmore's new Smoke on the Water for a while.
There were several revitalised bands/musicians in the mid-seventies, besides Blackmore's Rainbow. The other was Mott, born out of a stagnating Mott the Hoople. Luther Grosvenor was a pioneering guitarist, but not right for Mott the Hoople and he went on to Steve Ellis's promising, but short-lived, Widowmaker. Ronnie Dio, of course, reappeared in Sabbath, on the surprisingly good Heaven and Hell.
Keep playing the album US (at number 11 on your amp), and you may change your mind.
The band changed in style because Blackmore, having replaced the Elf guitarist with himself in order to make them Rainbow, sacked the remainder with the exception of Dio. Blackmore was prone to cutting off his nose to spite his face and should not have sacked Mickey Lee Soule on keyboards.
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