> Basically, if you don't pay for books, your opinion and tastes have no relevance.
That's a weird thing to say. I consider yours even though I might disagree with them wildly, why don't you consider mine? If authors write to make a buck, they surely will aim for the most profit. A masterpiece of literature won't do; a masterpiece might be misunderstood and recognized years after ones death. When you write to make money, you're looking to appeal to the most possible, and that is only achievable when everything but your skill to dress a story with words is mediocre.
That's not only true for literature; take a look at films and you'll notice lately there's much more attention paid to the visual part of a movie rather than its story, its character development, et cetera, which are just enough to go unnoticable.