Yeah, sounds like you listen to some of the same crap as I do. Just not as diverse a list. 
However, I was thinking about how 1976 was nearly forty years ago, and how much your, um, enthusiasm reminds me of the Jazz purists of my childhood, arguing the relative merits of Louis Armstrong and King Oliver. Made a guy want to strangle some hepcats, it did. However, you have shown you have a sense of humor, so you may stay.
Then you should talk about Argent. Rod had some pretentious tendencies.
Pretentious is caring about Prog Rock 35 years after the fact. 
Just to re-establish my cred, I will remind all here (and inform our zombie resurrector) that I once played with Annie Haslam’s toes while she sang “Forever Changing.”
I hate you.
Since since so many are all fixated on the “P” word, I would like to hear your interpertations.
Serious ones.
Something that is slapped-together cannot be pretentious, right?
“Pretension” is one of those words that somehow is often mis-understood; taken to be something it isn’t, or simply having too many varied interpertations.
A dandy of this type of multi-understood word is “decadence”.
(I highly recommend you look up the book Decadence by Richard Gilman.)
Well, obviously, when we are talking about Art Rock. There are so many layers and the technology made it a pain to put them together. And then there was the competition to see which band could take the longest in the studio for their next album, for the sake of taking the longest.
Welcome to the SDMB, just letting you know, in case you don’t already, that overly snarky posts toward other members here are frowned upon, so try your best to avoid them unless you’re in the BBQ Pit.
That being said, I’m closing this thread as it was a 14 year old one. If you really all want to talk about the OP more or, rather, discuss what prog is or isn’t, feel free to make a new thread.