The thing is, I'm finding (eventually) that through research for Metal Month II I'm beginning to appreciate SOME of the subgenres I wouldn't even afford the time of day to. Honesty, if Death Metal had staggered up to me in the street, drunk and covered in blood and asked me what time it was, I would have ignored him and walked on!
But seriously: although some of the bands are as "bad" as I had expected (bad being of course a subjective term; I just mean bad in my opinion, stuff I would prefer not to listen to) there have been some surprises. Panopticon are one, and there will be others revealed throughout the coming month.
So restricting yourself to one or two genres is not good, equally restricting an album club to a very narrow remit is not, I think, a progressive or developmental step. But have it your way. If I did the HMAC it would have to encompass ALL subgenres no matter what. I personally believe, as I've already said, that limiting it is not the way to go, though most here appear to disagree.
I wondered about maybe
a) Find a new Metal Artiste -- new to you --- each day/week and post about them
b) Classic Metal thread
c) NWOBHM thread --- recount your experiences if you have any or ask questions about that era
d) New Metal albums thread ("Metal albums you're digging"?) --- not the same as "What are you listening to Metal", as they'd have to be new
e) Help others get into this Metal band/subgenre
f) Headbangers Ball, where everyone just posts a certain number of their favourite metal videos
That's all I got at the moment. Over to yiz...