Your rhetoric is defeating you. I guess I get to play the role of Katie Couric to your Sarah Palin: What literary critics/"elites" do you specifically disagree with here? You're not answering that question. You're tossing about generalizations that do not show any depth of thought here.

I'm also uncertain about the amount of engagement you did with the texts you did mention, as it wouldn't surprise me if they were largely comprised of books that were assigned reading during the 16-22 age period. Now almost two months into a year-long reading (very few re-reads) and reviewing project where I cover the available William Faulkner stories, what I've learned is that at 37 those stories that I had been assigned to read at 18-19 mean a lot more now and those that I'm discovering for the first time move and entertain at the same time. I've learned how to evaluate prose, to judge how themes are executed, how characters are drawn and depicted, and you know what? I've discovered a greater depth of entertainment there.

Problem is, when I read something like Sanderson's works, I can enjoy it on the plot twist level, think his characterizations and thematic execution are shallow, and not dwell too much upon what I read. I recognize that is precisely the level of engagement works such as his are written, I don't disparage the works (I tend to give them mixed/positive marks), and it happens to be that his prose and characterizations was something that I discussed directly with him over at Westeros over a year before he was tabbed to finish WoT (sadly that thread was lost when several threads were deleted for space purposes about three years ago).

All of this is just a long way of saying that you are making too many generalizations about things and aren't delving further into it.