Great song, brilliant vocal performance

[Krabbe]

About the 200-400, I've added wide guitar busses an octave down in the chorus to make the arrangement breathe more, because I felt there weren't these "natural breathing elements" in the arrangement. I admit, I was a test to see, if this was a path to follow here on out, because I experience a lot of ... "uncomplete" arrangements. 

The drum comps are API2500 with the slowest attack settings, so maybe I should find a drum comp with slower attack option. Any suggestions?

The octave down thing would explain the low mid congestion. The guitars on this mix were already very muddy sounding, so I think that might be exacerbating the issue.  I'd suggest looking into vocal ambience - mainly delays - as a way to help the chorus "arrive" better

Regarding the drums, could it be possible that the transients are being blunted later in the signal path - perhaps at the master buss comp and/or limiter?

I agree that the key to making the chorus arrive is the vocals, which is what I will be focusing my attention on.

Usually I wouldn't suspect nor the drum bus (max -2dB) or the limiter (max -2dB) to cause issues. However, it's obvious that something's not "quite there", why everything is up for grabs.

I appreciate your input, and I will most definitely this keep it in mind, when I have another go at this.

Cheers