Something else I just thought of. A while back I was reading an article about how Black Sabbath got started with their gloomy sound. It seems that back when they were still primarily a blues band, the guitarist, Toni Iommi, was involved in an industrial accident that left him with only partial use of the fingers on his fretting hand. Since he had a difficult time applying the pressure needed to play without causing a lot of pain, he detuned all the strings by 2 full steps so that they wouldn't have as much tension on them and he wouldn't need to apply near as much pressure to fret them. It inadvertantly lead to their boomy, low sound, but enabled him to continue playing.

Would moving all the strings one place (and getting a custom gauge e string) and tuning them a fifth lower help anyone who can make the chord patterns, but has a tough time applying the pressure?