@Bankie @PeteS - I agree about Amplitude 5 with the rock tones, however if you go for the MAX package there are some really excellent metal amps such as Mesa Boogie dual and triple rectifier, Amplitude's own seems to be a go to for me, the Slash, Satriani signature models don't really do much for me, they sound very similar.
The first thing I would do is to move right away from the 4 tones that you like and spend an evening trying something completely different, some presets perhaps and work back from them, with just drums and bass, put the bass down a bit in the mix.
With regards your problem with punch, sometimes it's due to a track being cluttered with too much going on, so the initial pick of the plectrum is occluded with something else around that freq range, if it's in the same place int he sound stage, another fix for something like this is to put the punch somewhere else, for example on the kick, or snare, as with all drum mixing it can sound awful when solo'd, but come alive when used in the whole mix, kicks can be hard to get right.
Have as little compression as possible, as that'll take some of the punch away.
Hope this helps Pete
