Yes and No. I have seen quite an amount of hate against those bands from the fanside. I think a huge problem seems to be different fan culture.
On another note i do like the rest of your list.
I mean, there’s a list of their themes here (MUCC - MyAnimeList.net) and apparently they did themes for “Naruto: Shippuden” and a “The Seven Deadly Sins” OVA, and that’s not exactly obscure. I remember hearing the “Seven Deadly Sins” one when I was watching Netflix and being like “Oh, that’s what MUCC sounds like now?”
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Judging by record sales it’s GLAY.
Fun fact they hold the title for the fifth best selling album in Japan with their best of album Review.
Regarding the popularity of MUCC in Japan. I remember finding their albums in regular and second hand music stores quite often, and at a quite hefty price. They must have been at least somewhat mainstream popular.
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Yeah I was actually going to mention Mother myself slipped my mind but yeah people are definitely underselling/underestimating their popularity both in and out of Japan. They definitely aren’t the most popular but definitely relatively popular.
DazzlingBad
And that’s exactly why they are maybe not going forward right now, to much focus on their imagery and zero focus on making real good music, if they don’t move to creating a good sound as well, they won’t hold their current position, because there will be bands, who also look amazing but have also a great or just good enough sound as well… (and Tanuki has already a gossip topic no.6… might feels a lot?, some bands are longer around and only have 2-3 topics in two years time)
For Gazette, I’ve met enough people knowing who they are, might you just have met the wrong normies who really don’t give a shit about bands looking like Gazette, then they also don’t remember even if they have seen/heard them somewhere.
Metal Fans and The Gazette?.. 
No that’s a NO-GO. Gazette music is nice, but you can’t call them a Metal band at all. Maybe 1 of 100 Metal fans can accept Gazette, the others will gently tell you they don’t know them or tell them they suck.
Kaneto Juusei is even trending sometimes on my website even if there is no interview, only some older news. But how far can they go? And can they also sell out bigger halls then they do now? Time will tell us. But I hope they will do well 
Nightmare… I never really knew how popular they were, but their songs are also covered by session bandman quite often, so people need to know them right and love them enough? But I don’t think they are mainstream anymore, the were for sure at a point.
About Mucc,
They were often in magazines I believe(But not really often cover artist?), but I can’t recall seen people talk a lot about them. At least Japanese people. but overseas I saw their name always anywhere. so many Mucc fans. But I never was a fan myself.
Anyway
DIAURA, BORN, AWOI, the gazette, nightmare, lynch, Avelcain, DEZERT, sadie, janne da arc… are bands who get coved currently the most by vkei session bandman.
Maybe I’m just being picky about the term “mainstream” or focusing too much on numbers. And maybe I do just know all the wrong normies. I’m a bit picky about Oricon sales because a lot can impact where a release lands (such as what else is being released that day, how many editions of a certain piece are being sold, etc). If we look at a mainstream rock band (non VK) like The Oral Cigarettes, their sales drag any VK release through the mud, even if they happened to land on the same or similar numbers. But again, maybe I’m just focusing too much on every little detail. If I were to rewrite a more laxed version on my previous tier list, it would probably look something more like this:
Tier 1: God tier, household names. The college kid who’s barely discovering their taste in music is going to know them, your 30-50 yo coworker is going to know them, your grandma is going to know them: X Japan, L’arc en Ciel, Luna Sea, Glay, Hyde in general.
Tier 2: Mainstream bands as in a fair share of people in and out of the scene know them. You’ll see their billboards around the city, they do openings for tv shows, they get those trucks to drive around playing their music, etc: Dir en Grey, The Gazette, Nightmare, Anything with Kyo, Lynch, Mucc, Sid, Versailles, Alice Nine. Kuroyume and Penicillin would be here back in their days.
I would say the big two are Diru and The Gazette. With Dir en Grey being slightly in the lead for the reasons I previously mentioned.
Nightmare still hold a special kind of recognition power because a lot of people still remember them from death note and they still do tv appearances. The Gazette and Dir en Grey still play bigger venues than them though.
Tier 3: Popular VK acts that are popular to a bigger audience but don’t quite reach the guys in the top: Dezert, Kizu, Razor, Dadaroma, Arlequin. Xaa-Xaa and Gulu Gulu are getting here.
Weird Tier: The VK bands that are doing the metalcore/deathcore influenced thing. Probably selling as much as the guys above with the exception of Dezert and Kizu who are outselling everyone else: Dexcore, Nazare, Jiluka, Nocturnal Bloodlust.
Tier 4: Popular indie bands that are popular in the more underground scene: Ashmaze, Virge, Nicolas, The Madna. Xanvala, Ari.
Tier 5: They’re selling well now, but we’ll see where they’re at in a year: Kaneto Juusei, Dazzling Bad. Kaneto Juusei are basically the envy of the do-minor scene right now. I’m interested in seeing how they get to the the next step.
See I can only speak from the VK side on that regard. The aforementioned bands are special in that they play events with both metalcore/deathcore bands and with Visual kei bands. As far as the VK side goes, I think they’re pretty much the envy of a lot of other bands for it. Would love to hear more about it from someone who’s more familiar with the other side though .
Also I don’t follow any Japanese metalcore/deathcore bands, but I do follow quite a few western ones and partake in discussions with the fandom. It’s not rare for the occasional person to ask about “Japanese core bands” and bring those guys up.
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Yeah, in retrospect reading what I wrote it doesn’t sound like that but I do feel that nowadays MUCC and Nightmare are around the same popularity level but MUCC is more relevant since they were around for longer. And ppl here seem to kind of underestimate MUCC and overestimate Nightmare for some reason. (random comparision only because I like both and remember Tatsurou and bae Hitsugi were buddy buddy in interviews back in the days but Tatsurou was the obvious successful veteran lol.)
But this is exactly why I mentioned “depends on what magazines you read” etc, Nightmare was featured in SHOXX … regularly, did TV appearances, radio etc. from the (late/)mid 00s (specifically due to DN/Budoukan) to the (early/)mid 10s so they were pretty famous in that “if you like vk you know them” way. Possibly comparable to Gazette for instance, in Japan, like @Ghost12 put. But internationally? Nah, it’s Gazette all the way 
(and it’s their “fault” since they aren’t even on my streaming service for instance, … and are afraid of planes supposedly.)
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Oh you can add a Tier 6 and Tier 7 to that or even Tier 8.
Tier 6
Bands most people know in the scene, but can’t sold out a (bigger) live hall alone yet. The bands you surely will enjoy watching them live, but you don’t really care to support those as a “stan”. But have the potential to stay alive for some years, because their music is good and still have a small but good local fanbase following them.
(I would say; The Nostradamnz, Neth Pierre Cain, i.D.A, REIREI, ANSIFLE, Calmando Qual)
Tier 7
The amazing short living bands, everyone wanted to like but still disbanded too fast.
Tier 8
Bands who once where in Tier 6 and almost in Tier 5, but made a fall back.
To me that’s E.T (At least if I should believe a friend, they seem to have lost a part of their fanbase)
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I forgot to mention a few bands that came to mind: 摩天楼オペラ, R指定, and NoGoD. Not exactly sure how popular they are overall but all seem at least somewhat well known domestically.