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Originally Posted by Anteater
Nice spotlight. The Warning, at least for me, is one of metal's big watershed moments in the 80's: it was the point where some of the jazzier, "artsy" tendencies touched upon in the late 70's and very early 80's by Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath were fleshed out and dialed up to 11 with a healthy dose of Genesis and Pink Floyd to boot. And while not perfect ('Before The Storm' is a tad weak as you said), I'd say its the definitive start of progressive metal as a genre. Was any other metal band doing songs like NM 156 in '84?
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As I know they're your favourite band, so your knowledge of the band is going to be spot on. Thinking about it the watershed moment that you're referring to, I think seemed to happen without many people being aware of it and doing some more reading on the album, it's certainly a prime candidate to be recognized as the first true 'prog metal' from end to end. Sure nobody in metal was doing tracks like "N M 156" at this time.
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James Guthrie was a interesting choice of producer too: his ethereal touch elevates 'No Sanctuary' and 'Roads To Madness' to another level, aided in part via orchestration by the legendary Michael Kamen.
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Nearly every review touches on this and in a negative way (I didn't because of my own word count) but for me James Guthrie as producer seems quite logical, I mean he'd worked extensively with Pink Floyd and if a band wanted to record a prog metal album, it made more sense at this time to go with a prog familiar producer than a metal one.
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I'm going to assume Operation: Mindcrime will probably make your list in '88, but I'd recommend checking out Rage For Order again at some point too. For a lot of folks, that's where QR really came into their own. 
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Operation Mindcrime of course and super high, and I'm already a fan of Rage For Order so no need to convince me on that one.