You should probably try larger venues, where reason #3 is on your side. The problem with small venues is that often you really need a lot of volume on guitars,

You should probably try larger venues, where reason #3 is on your side. The problem with small venues is that often you really need a lot of volume on guitars, vocals, etc to get the mix right with the drums, and then there isn't any space to soak up that energy. Instead it winds up reflecting off the walls and causing havoc, in addition to just being loud as hell. Of course, that's not to say that there aren't bands that would play a full stack in a closet, but most of the time they're just struggling to get the mix right and give people the experience they want.