Oh yeah, there are loads of folks my age (52) and older who still won't touch anything heavier than Maiden.
Slayer was extreme in 1986, so yeah, that reluctance to listen to anything remotely "shouty" was already present. But lots of Maiden fans had stuff like Helloween and Savatage to move laterally toward. We all branched out in different directions. Heck, I found Morbid Angel and Death boring when I was 18 so I'd gone in a more prog/experimental/alt metal direction by 1989.
― A. Begrand, Tuesday, 30 May 2023 22:12 (eleven months ago) link