Imagery in Revelation and social-historical persons, events and situations

I was teaching five sessions on the imagery in Revelation in church.  I was sharing about my discovery of the Jewish War (66-70), the Flavians, and the long acknowledged Nero in its images, and my suggestion of imperial and major graeco-Roman goddesses therein (chs 9, 12-13 and 17-18). (See my PhD thesis.)
I realize that in the academic circles one main approach is to read Revelation through the lens of socio-historical contexts, but this approach has not caught the attention or gained momentum with the wider circle of the Christian community. The popular way of reading the book is still mainly futuristic, i.e. seeing the most part of Revelation as pointers to would-be events from our point of time. There is quite some mental blog to lay readers (or perhaps even to scholars) when they are asked to look at Revelation from the socio-historical perspective, since ingrained in the thinking is the idea that Revelation reads like a 'prophecy' in the commonly understood sense of the word: futuristic. And seeing such down-to-earth events and personages in the long past taking such a large part of the depictions just goes against the grain of understanding about the nature of the prophecy in Revelation, and the idea that biblical prophecy is mostly about the future. No doubt Revelation has future elements and rightly so up to the consummation of all things. But if one looks at 'prophecy' in the OT Bible, it is foremost relevant to a community that a prophet is trying to correct or to encourage, and the events that the prophet forecasts (such as the destruction of Jerusalem) are mostly imminent and looming in the horizon at the point of speaking. In addition, a prophet uses past events as historical lessons to teach his community. He also directs his attention to present circumstances, especially when reflecting on the present evils of the society. So can we also accept the 'prophecy' in Revelation to contain depictions of past and contemporary events at the point of its writing? In principle, there is nothing that requires 'prophecy' to be mainly futuristic. Understanding the images in it from the first century point of view, I suggest, makes much sense of the mind-boggling images in it. The author is seen to use his imagery to speak a meaningful message of warning to the deviant groups in the churches of Asia Minor, as much as he encourages the faithful then to endure oppositions.
This reading assumes the integrity of the whole book as one composition (i.e. chs 1-3 and 4-22 are meant to be read together). There are indicators of inclusio to the whole book. The blessings and curses in the letters do allow the reader to anticipate the final chapters in which Jesus fights the final battle(s) and certian details in the new Jerusalem that enact some of the blessings and curses. The injunction right at the end of the book to the addressed churches to heed the prophecy is a support that the book is meant to make sense to its first century readers in their own socio-historical circumstances.
But I guess the reluctance for the general audience to adopt a predominently socio-historical approach is that this reading takes away so much mystery from the book that it is no longer the Revelation which awes and intrigues! It feels as if without the 'prophetic' (futuristic) elements to provide the signs to our times, Revelation loses its appeal as the inspired word! But this could be due to misunderstanding of the nature of Bible, and an ingrained idea that the basis of our faith is built much on prophetic capability of the Bible.