I feel very much the same way. if I'm going to play a cover (and we do....Blood For Master plays a cover of Pentagram's Sign Of The Wolf) I like to play a more powerful version of it, not simply recreate the original. to dedicate your entire musical identity to someone else's material, as good as that material may be, just feels like a waste of time to me.
I get it. I would do it. It's not about creating your own music. You can't really judge it on the same artistic scale. It's like debating good and bad. a reglous person is going to rate those along the scale of good and evil while someone who doesn't believe in a god is going to be rating good and bad on a whole different scale.
Of course if your puting in on the same scale as the top being expressing your own artistic musical voice it's going to look weak but if you look at it from the view of guys who want to have some fun and play some tunes that they love, grown up with, music that has changed there lives then in one view i find more respect for these guys and they are completing the goal set out while other bands and struggling to get there music heard.
It's all a matter of how you look at it. The world isn't filled with small things and tall things. Those only exist once you start comparing, judging, and competing.
Some people might say a computer mouse is "small" but i say it's the perfect fit. It's all about how you look at it.