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I've read all of the Hugo Best Novel winners since the beginning of time. (Not actually true: I haven't read all the Retro Hugo winners.)
I don't think this year's winner is particularly out of line with the history of the award, and I think the last decade has actually been pretty strong. It's quite hard to point to particular low points, in my opinion, because weak books tend to be surrounded by strong ones wherever you look.
It's also hard to think of anything that was severely overlooked in this year's field. Looking at the long list and other awards, there's nothing massive that has missed out.
Quite a few of the "controversial" "PC" recent winners are actually kind of throwbacks. A Memory of Empire is basically a C J Cherryh novel. It's all about galactic empires and someone trying to get by out of their depth. I didn't love it as much as others did; if anything it was too much like too many other books. Ancillary Justice, which I did love, was another galactic empire space opera. I find it weird when people reject stuff that's exactly what they say they want just because it has a different angle. (And it has to have a different angle, for my money, because the old books still exist.)
From this year's nominations I have also read The Ten Thousand Doors of January. It's another one I was lukewarm on compared to others, but also one that I have seen a lot of buzz about. It doesn't feel like it was nominated because of some PC quota-filling.
I think I agree, though, that information is much more available now, and all awards are a little bit superfluous for an engaged audience. In the past I probably wouldn't have read two of the nominees before they were even nominated. In the past, they probably wouldn't have been available in the UK until they'd already won.
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