I have no issues with Styx at all - not even with Babe. Renegade is actually a good song and that acapella start memorable, they always retained a slight Prog touch, even in their pop stuff. The band was quite varied with all the different songwriters it had, and while Dennis de Young hardly had a rock voice, you recognized him immediately when you heard him. There was a time in the late seventies when they were the No 1 selling band in the US, taking that cup away from Kiss (and a lot of Kiss' output sounds ancient today in comparison to Styx songs from the same time).
Styx, Dio, Sabbath or the New Joisians: In essence, it's all riff-oriented hard rock in the good old-fashioned sense. And while I write this and I have my office stereo on random, Loverboy erupts with When It's Over ... 
By the time they were the top selling band, they had played themselves to death in Chicago. I don't think they ever played the hometown in their peak. When they were coming up, they even played my high school's homecoming dance one year.
I like a lot of the earlier stuff from Styx, and I had the pleasure of jamming with Tommy Shaw at a club in Niles, MI when they were big. He was a nice guy, came up for a 30 min. improv (and I didn't have the cassette running that night), and spent some time talking to us. He has a farm in Niles, right down the road from Jackson, where Ted had his place. Our guitarist ended up stealing Tommy's shirt, which he left hanging on a chair at the club.
Give me "Suite Madame Blue" "Lorelei" or "Miss America" any day.
