I guess that's the reason I was never WAYYYYY into NIN. By the time I bought PHM, I was already into Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Foetus, Sisters of Mercy, Front 242, all the "old" industrial (Gristle, Cab Voltaire, ClockDVA, etc). So I liked PHM but didn't even think of it in the same terms as any of those artists. To me it was more like "Prince is white and on drugs", which is what I liked about it, and when I heard the "Get Down Make Love" cover I was sold.
Then he went all aggro, dropped ALL sexual ambiguity, and I was left with "Well, this is alright, but if I wanted to listen to angry guitars and drum machines, I already own a copy of Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste".
Then he seemed to stop aging - meaning he never grew up - because suddenly I was listening to a 40+ year old man whine bad poetry, and all I could think at that point was "Aging Gracefully - See: Thirlwell, Jim; Snog; Cave, Nick; Bowie, David - Avoid: Reznor, Trent; Jourgenson, Al; Puppy, Skinny".
But I guess I can buy the argument that if you never listened to industrial before NIN, you'd love it, just like kids who had never heard Pavement liked Weezer.