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Having requested Harlequin guidelines YEARS and YEARs ago, I can tell you they are quite exact. They pretty much expect a first kiss by page X (with some leeway). Both main characters must be introduced by page X and so on. There's nothing really wrong with that. We all like spaghetti as a comfort food and some of us might like it on a weekly basis. But I think it present problems with sales. When I worked in the library, the policy was not to buy certain imprints and Harlequin was one (many of the romance books were). No, this was not because of quality. It was because of donations. People bought them, read them and turned them over to our collection. We only bought a few of the best sellers (Nora Roberts for example) and whoever else made it to hardback print.
For the most part that is the only romance books the library spent money on. The rest of the genre was donated.
I agree that Carina books vary in quality and depth. I like Julie Moffett and Maureen Miller has some interesting stuff too. I wish Moffett would possibly choose a guy character to be the main, but I suspect that it will continue to be a toss-up (not a love triangle at all because the book is mystery more than romance, and part of the main gal's charm is her inability to deal with guys/relationships/hints/dates). I have read some that were good reads, but nothing I felt I had to stay with as far as the series.
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