To be honest that's not really the common logic in sound design, it's merely advertising, what we tell filmmakers who don't really understand what sound design is! Sure, there are levels of subtlety which are designed not to be consciously noticed and are therefore powerful filmmaking tools because they are subliminal/visceral. I spend an unrepresentative amount of time mentioning them simply because most newbs don't know they even exist and even fairly experienced amateur filmmakers have a very limited understanding of what enhanced filmmaking/storytelling opportunities they represent. The reality is though, as we're talking now about more advanced filmmaking, that this subliminal aspect of sound design is just one aspect, there are other aspects which are not subliminal at all and absolutely should be noticed, shockingly so quite often. The logic for me, is not how good the really obvious sound design should be or how good and unnoticeable the subliminal sound design should be but how both of these (and other) sound design tools are used to make the film as good as it can be.
Same is true of music. Sure, I too want the audience to be floored by the score but that's not the only thing I want. Music can be a very powerful and useful tool when used much more subtly, far too useful a tool IMHO to just be dismissed on principle. Especially as it's not a case of "either/or" because not only can you can have both (subtle and flooring) but done well they can compliment each other and floor the audience even more! It's your film of course, your choice of how to employ music cues and I don't know enough details of your film to be absolutely certain that not employing music subtly (as well as strikingly) will definitely weaken it. I'm just going on the balance of probabilities and the fact that most filmmakers, even moderately experienced ones, don't fully appreciate all the filmmaking/storytelling tools music cues can represent.
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