Rob, lay off me, I just got a speeding ticket from your darn country - for driving 108 km/h in a 100 km/h zone. It's costing me EUR 57 so obviously my moffen license plate was the decisive factor!!! I'm climbing into my Ju 52 as I write ...
Besides, a thread about Janick Gers is as prone to mention TMIB as a Randy Hansen thread would be to mention Hendrix. Janick has sucked Ritchie in and given the fact that Steve Harris favours Deep Purple over Led Zeppelin too (as does Bruce Dickinson, his Ritchie is called Ian Gillan), that probably was a decisive factor too for Janick landing the job with Iron Maiden (and the one before with Gillan, of course). Come to think of it, even Judas Priest (initially monikered in Germany by rock critics in the late 70ies as a "poor man's Deep Purple/Black Sabbath crossover in Village People garb") had/have more Led Zep ingredients in their music than the Maidens do.
