This may be a disagreement in definitions rather than substance. Sure, NOFX has much in common with classic punk rock, but in my mind, the moniker can only be applied to bands and music from a specific cultural situation and time-frame…namely, the late seventies and early eighties.
Phish has much in common with hippie bands, but are they really a hippie band? I don’t think so, personally.
I generally think that the cultural values of the fans of the latter bands tend to be wholly different than those of the earlier bands…more watered-down.
The real cultural force of both these types of music, I would argue, was expended fairly quickly, as more casual fans and scenesters infiltrated the movements. This is especially true of punk rock, where the scene was built strictly as an underground phenomenon…and its very nature was antithetical to being raised into the light of mainstream attention.
In other words, once the suburban kids started ripping their jeans and using safety pins to hold them together, it became High Fashion, which placed punk in the Mainstream…the one place it couldn’t survive.
Sure, there are still underground bands, but I don’t think they are “punk,” simply because they are now divorced from the cultural, political, and economic circumstances that led to Punk Rock’s ascendancy.
Moreover, I tend to find NOFX, AFI, and Pennywise (ESPECIALLY Pennywise) boring, repetitive, and extremely unoriginal. Guys, please. It’s been done, thousands of times. And better.
[/pedantic music rant]
YMMV, of course, and I expect it does.