I'd like to start by saying you made a very good argument here, but I would like to make some comments of my own as someone who is absolutely infatuated with this genre. You mention that a lot of synthwave is easy listening, but ironically most of the synthwave artists I tend to enjoy are a lot more "hardcore" I'd list 'carpenter brut','dance with the dead' and 'master boot record' as some good counterexamples to what you described. As for the social aspect, many people agree that the movie 'Drive' really kicked off the modern synthwave movement with its soundtrack and how the music played into the actions of the main character. The interesting thing about that movie is that it exists in a world almost directly opposite of what you described as "smooth social brand exterior" all the characters are living in some form of grime or filth, and the main character is a socially stunted badass. This movie (atleast for me) really set the stage of what synthwave conveyed, its fantasy of what I was told growing up were better times. Hotline Miami is another piece of art that prominently uses the genre to convey harsh ultra violent scenes of death and destruction, the beat and tempo drive the player to move quickly and kill swiftly in these dingy crime infested apartment complexes. Because I was so heavily influenced by Drive and Hotline Miami I see the genre as this brooding soundtrack for antihero's, like the kind of music that plays when the protagonist does some horrible stuff and subsequently smokes a cigarette looking off into the distance trying to understand what they just did. I'll post some example tracks below of darker stuff that fits this ethos.
I'm also a Master Boot Record fan (and of his crypto puzzles), but he's more metal driven instead of the uncanny reflections of regular synthwave.
With you on the movie Drive as the aesthetic origin of the revival though. I'd still say that the mumblecore/normcore element of Drive is an expression of the same kind of psychopathic dull affect Ellis was writing about, except Drive was about working people struggling instead of city bankers.
I make a lot of music that is influenced by what happened outside and after that 80s synth genre, as I think what happened was the paralell thread of the 80s, which was holdovers from industrial and minimalist pioneers in the 70s influenced aphex twin, autechre, orbital, future sound of london, and eventually breaking through to the mainstream with underworld and chemical brothers.
There is a godawful almost secret album by Underworld when they were an 80s synth band, that captures the end of the synthwave moment just before they really became Underworld (pre dubnobasss) when synthy alt culture met dance/techno. My own stuff (in recent comment history) riffs on that transitional era between industrial, techno, punk, and what would become electronica. Super fun topic!
MBR is fantastic for lifting heavy things. I haven't ever engaged in any of the puzzles, but I do enjoy the obscure references to crufty old Windows tech. :)
I have to agree with you. For me synthwave guys like Peturbator, Danger, Carpenter Brut, am 1984 [0] et al (even com truise) conjure imagery like Blade Runner, Clockork Orange, Neuromancer, the anime world of Ghost in the Shell, driving alone late at night in an empty city, slow motion violence, and sex. Maybe both at the same time.
Perturbator is especially good at bridging synthwave with [0] industrial. I used to listen to a lot of Antigen Shift, Muted Logic, Cenotype, Formalkaline and Scrap.edx prior discovering this subgenre. I suppose being influenced by the frequent DNA Lounge attendance mostly contributed to this lean.
Dance with the Dead [1] also does this particular well along with Turbo Knight [2][3].
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wy9r2qeouiQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E9-rDplPrM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNE2oCZH_4k