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When I was 8, I could tell that the old Looney Tunes / Merrie Melodies cartoons that reran in the afternoon were a lot better and funnier than the new ones that ran on Saturday morning, even though a lot of the references -- Edward G Robinson, Bogart, McCall -- went right over my head. So I don't think it's just a matter of old fogies thinking things used to be better. Some things really were better.
I think what the article writer is bemoaning is the fact that novelists just don't have the cultural influence they used to. The biggest stars now are genre writers, Rowling, King, etc. There are really no Roth, Mailer, Hemingway, etc. Franzen is mostly known for his tiff with Oprah. DFW is basically a cult figure, etc.
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