Back when I lurked in Seance some fans said they thought SA/SE was actually a Marty and Steve solo album, not a Church album.
I had no point of comparison then, I do now.
They may be partly right, the songs each one sings have similarities to their solo outputs, but I still think that it was the synergy of their collaboration that made those songs great.
In that vein I think that if we had the songs that SK sings as a "solo album" it wouldn't be his greatest, because it wouldn't have been as good without Marty.
Since I had never paid special importance to the dual guitar interplay I didn't feel Koppes absence in that sense (I know better now, to realize how much the interplay between MWP and PK adds to the songs).
Yes, SA was, and still is, weird for a Church album, but I had started hearing them from Starfish, so I didn't have as many years to develop a personal concept of the "Church sound" to find it missing. And to me the simple fact of finding a new Church album (no internet back then for me to even now if they still existed, and the complete lack of airplay would also make it doubtful that the albums would be imported in Mexico) was joy enough to take it for whatever it was.
No preconceptions, just expectations of good music, and I found it great.

I'm almost repeating myself everytime I post about this album... but the fact is that I love it.