In general, however, turning to your other points:
I would say that I don't agree with your categorization completely. I'd say aesthetics and style are nearly the same thing, depending on which definitions you're using. I'd say maybe "style" means the "author's style" while "aesthetics" means "what the reader appreciates."

I don't think aesthetics can be boiled down to florid descriptions - and, I know Nabakov is highly-regarded, much more so than RJ, but that is a truly florid description.

If you're going to use aesthetics to refer solely to the author, you'd look at Merriam-Webster, definition 2:
a particular theory or conception of beauty or art : a particular taste for or approach to what is pleasing to the senses and especially sight

A "real" artist - it's easiest to consider visual ones - has a theory: the slightly blurred and distancing effect of Impressionism, the odd juxtapositions of surrealism. Or, looking at books, the focus on artifice, as well as opulence and decay, in Decadence. These can work along with, or form the entirety of, the *thesis* of a particular work.

So when you use grotesque, like Toulouse-Lautrec, you make things nightmarish and garish and ugly. When you go with romantic or gothic aesthetics, you use the approach/theory of that style.

So this critique doesn't necessarily just "add right on" to what DomA was describing, I think.

RJ had a style - I only took it as the style for this series, not as he would've written something else. RJ's style certainly had a lot of repetition, and could really give the reader details that really weren't needed to build a scene. The "cream slashed with gold" comment that I read recently really was a succinct-but-serious highlight of where it becomes a problem.

Whether or not you like something does make a big difference. I don't like "Being John Malkovich," although I enjoyed some scenes. I admit that it has many special qualities and

If we want to look at things as "yeah we are clearly right about this," then you could look at numbers. If enough people say something is good, and there's some (honest) critical support, then it's good, right? But then you get into the Transformers movie - or that time I was on a date and I asked an actress what her favorite movie was and she said, "Independence Day."

So popular doesn't always signify quality as well. Since it becomes a giant opinion argument at that point, I can only say what I try to do: I put my measure into the appeal that something has to someone with well-developed tastes for the particular thing they're talking about.

Why? Because that's when you start to get thoughtful analysis along with emotional impact.

So when a person who knows classic rock inside-out says, "Lenny Kravitz is stealing his riffs all over the place, especially from Zep," I have some analysis to think about. And this person might like individual songs - might even say "ah, this is an original composition and it's stylistically and technically fine."

I may agree or disagree, but I trust their background, and their comments indicate that there's more of their brain going on that when someone sees Transformers 2 and says, "the explosions were sweet, the jokes were awesome, and Megan Fox is freaking hot!"

"BJM" was technically fantastic and had interesting ideas and I can see why it's popular. But I think that the writers pulled some very cheap tricks there and I don'object to the movie on those grounds in a pretty absolute way. I'm happy for the people who didn't notice the problems and just had a good time.

Personally, I can see that "Lolita" quote as possibly being a sweet read - whether or not I knew Russian language or history. I don't especially like it, but I can imagine how or why it would work in its own context.

I can take points away from RJ by saying that his choices - and their resulting effects - were gradually less impressive, or perhaps diminished - as the series went on.

It's the difference between looking at a work of art and saying "I get what X artist (RJ/Cuse and Lindelhof/Lars von Trier) was trying to do - nice attempt, but it didn't quite work" and saying "Entourage is like basically 1 or maybe 2 different episodes, but they've run 20 of them and they don't really have anything to say."

I at least try to give a decent amount of thought to people who can do the first and provide some critique. Then I decide if I disagree with them or not. Note that I'm not accusing you of giving this a shallow analysis, just saying the method that I use.

It's a weird topic because I find that music tastes can be extremely hard to translate/trust, while movie tastes are often easier to approach. Books, too, I think.

Try John Banville's "Athena" - there's great elements to it, but I didn't really think it worked. Try also, Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" - a great first novel that the author just rehashed 3+ times over.