Welcome to Music Banter Forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with over 70,000 other registered members. After you create your free account, you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 1,100,000 posts.
There's no need to take offense to the classification of "pop-punk". I mean, it really only means popular punk.
I think there's little more to it than that. There are pop-punk bands out there who are not well known. It's not about the fact that the band is popular, it's about the fact that they do have a certain sound. It's a sound based on the mainstays of pop music: hooks, catchy choruses, tight instrumentation, etc.
I mean, listen to how poppy this Blink 182 songs is:
Threaded Mode