I agree w/ you on the points of Black Sabbath. One of my favorite albums is We Sold Our Soul For Rock-N-Roll. I liked the art work and design as well. When you opened the cover up it unfolded into a picture of a woman w/ a cross in her chest as she is riseing up from her coffin like a vampire. The music is great (all of it). Ozzy aka Jonathan Osbourne has said many times his biggest influence was The Beatles. As far as using distortion, diminished scales and minor chords Iommi incorporated alot of it into what our generation considers Metal. Alice Cooper put theatrics behind his music and had some really morbid ideas behind them while using almost an entire marching band in the studios. So alot of pop metal and glam rock (hairbands) were created as they were influenced by him as well like (KISS) and they influenced many others and so on and so on.
Great post by the way. I'm still listening
i just think that sabbath took in all the stuff that came before them , put their style to it down tuned the shit out of their instruments and really put metal on its path