Is Daphne DuMaurier A Lesser Writer Than ???

In an article in the Guardian, Daphne Du Maurier is compared unfavorably to Anthony Powell, Evelyn Waugh and other writers. Her writing is called flabby, overwrought. She is judged to be  a near equivalent to Barbara Cartland (no insult intended--I have never read Ms. Cartland).

Now when was the last time you heard anyone say they were reading Powell, I ask you. If a book continues to draw in readers 75 years later, can the writing really be sub-par?Mustn't it have some qualities that are to be admired? Some enduring positive traits?

 REBECCA and MY COUSIN RACHEL astounded me once again when I read them a few years back. They have a power, a pull,  that many other novels of that era did not. Some of DuMaurier short stories are brilliant too. (Don't Look Now, The Birds).

This becomes a tiresome argument, but what other writers have been consigned to second ratedom and continue to be read rather than just talked about in articles like this one? 

Who deserves more respect than they get?