Can someone tell me... (Moody Blues/Procol Harum)

I have been visiting this Web site for several years but this is only my second post. I couldn't resist jumping in because the topics are near and dear to my heart. I'm 57 years old (gulp), started listening to rock and roll when I was nine, got turned on to Dylan in '65 and saw him live that year with The Band backing, followed the development of folk rock from its inception, and then followed the development of psychedelic-progressive rock from its inception. After some initial stirrings in ’65 (e.g., The Yardbirds) and some deep rumblings in ’66 (e.g., Revolver) in ‘67 the creative lid was blown off of the music scene. So much was happening that you no longer had a frame of reference and anything seemed possible. Creative experimentation was going on everywhere you looked and not just in what would later be called prog. Just a few examples: The Doors, The Beach Boys (Smile could have been the beginning of prog if Brian Wilson hadn't been sabotaged by both Mike Love and his own unstable mind, and even the 2004 version of Smile still sounds far ahead of its time), Van Dyke Parks (Song Cycle), The Beatles (Sgt. Pepper, of course), Love (Forever Changes), The Mothers of Invention, The Velvet Underground, The Who (the mini-opera "A Quick One While Hel's Away”), and I could go on and on. At the time, Procol Harum, the Moody Blues, The Nice, Pink Floyd, and Traffic were not "proto-prog," they were PROG. I even coined the term "progressive rock" to describe what I was hearing (not to suggest that I started the use of the term, but great minds think alike!). I totally agree, however, that In the Court of the Crimson King was the beginning of progressive rock in the fully developed sense of the term that came to define the genre in the '70s. So looking back on it all, I would say yes, you people by and large are very astute in your choice of terms for these genres and subgenres. The Moody Blues and Procol Harum were very progressive for their time, and without them and the other bands the prog that we know and love would never have developed (e.g., it seems that PH's “In Held Twas in I" paved the way for the theatrical prog that Genesis explored so effectively), but they are rightly classified as "proto-prog" because they do not include all the features of the classic prog of the ‘70s, and its interesting that they never felt compelled to emulate what the other bands were doing at that time. They remained true to their own muses and continued to be originals, even though they were overshadowed by the weightier music that was then being created. However, I would make one additional and final point. "Proto" doe not necessarily mean "inferior." For me there is a magic to The Moody Blues music (especially heard in the Classic 7 albums) that all of the progressive rock that would follow could never quite touch, no matter how superior the musicianship and more complex the music would be, although Genesis and The Strawbs came very close.