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Well, your ideas on mecha are a bit clouded, as you're thinking of them as a theme, rather than a genre (since mecha really is a theme, and not a genre, same as Magical Girl, swords, etc.)
Mecha can't classify as a genre because the only thing mecha anime have in common are the appearance of mecha. Of course you can have a fighting/tournament style anime, or a romance anime, an adventure, etc. You could easily also have the same thing with Magical Girl characters as well, right?
Having mecha in an anime does not make it a certain way. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was a action/comedy/drama, but then again, so was Fullmetal Alchemist. Full Metal Panic! was an action/comedy/romance, but so is Shakugan no Shana (arguably.), Code Geass is an action/thriller/genious-type thing, and so is Death Note.
Action involves fighting, fast-paced scenes, high-tension parts and such; comedy involves stuff that attempts makes you laugh; romance involves touchy feelings and whatnot between its main characters; fantasy incorporates magical or other phenomena and rotates around it; and mecha has robots.
(Fantasy would arguably be a bit of a theme, though series based upon fantasy are generally very different, as it is often much more central to the story than mecha.)
So yeah. Continuing, I would agree that it's often overlooked, but mainly because it's often an acquired taste. If someone grew up watching Gundam, Macross, Neon Genesis Evangelion, etc., then they would probably have less bias against it if they're older.
I personally followed Zoids and Gundam Wing when I was six or seven, but I was mildly reluctant to start watching mecha several years later. Of course, after I watched Full Metal Panic!, I got a bit more used to it, and I now have little to no bias against it, continuing to watch Code Geass, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (one of my personal favourites), and other mecha series.
Mmm..
That's just a bit of opinion and self-history.
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