It might be something with the whole dynamic , dist vs clean sense, pure cab ...
but remember heavy drive or dist will squash your signal to a very compressed signal, killing lots of dynamics in the process.
I would lower the gain and concentrate on your dynamics vs compression until you're satisfied. But yes you'll escape from the metal world to lower gain music, and you're sure getting some maturity, that's the price.
That's why I love older marshall for gainy tones ( plexis & JCM 800) , with proper natural double tracking you can't miss a killer tone on a great Lester & a KPA.