Yeah, LOL, Maiden would be nothing without the bass!

I have BTW also noticed that these days when I see a band on stage, the emphasis seems to be pretty heavily on the rhythm section quite often, and guitars are - especially in metal bands - often scooped-sounding, buried 'whassssshhhhh' in there that you only hear a constant steady roar of somewhere there.

My preference is absolutely in LOUD guitars, I want to hear the guitar loud, not so important about the rest :-) but that is an exaggeration, I love good bass too, but the bass I like is usually more like guitar sounding, think Maiden indeed, or Motörhead...