Rites of Spring are a weird case because due to being the go to Real Emo band for people to namedrop, because at the time Fugazi and post-hardcore was semi mainstream and there is direct connection via members, so music elitists would cite them cause its the earliest and rarest example they knew of. The other side of the emo split, screamo kinda happened at the same time and was more associated with the crust and grindcore scene and they sound like it. Pitchfork wasnt recommending people listen to Heroin, they were hyped on Fugazi. I think this led to a feedback loop where a lot of later pop punk style emoji bands did take influence directly from Rites of Spring while skipping the history in between.