Yeah, and three other things too. 1) We're used to thinking of the classics as the old books.. as in "all" the old books but the truth is they're just the tip of the iceberg that's survived and some tiny fraction of the books written or even popular years ago. and 2) Writing style is individual but it also if you've noticed, is somewhat particular to the time period in which it's written and you may or may not, depending on many things about your personal experience - enjoy a writing style or it's language - and those things don't make them a poorly written book. and 3) I need more coffee because I forgot 3 while I was typing 1 and 2. :P ahem, okay yeah.. 3) We usually only read one "edit" of an older book. Of a once popular "classic" written a century ago, there may be a multitude of published edits and we can possibly have run across a bad one. And many reasons for bad editors related to the combination of money and publishers. heh, We should have a thread about stories we know about bad editing or bad publications of good books.
So I agree with HarryT when he says:
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Don't you think, though, that most books that are considered "classics" are considered to be so because of the "writing skills" of the author? The reason that the books of authors like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy, to name but three, are regarded as "classics" is because they were very, very good authors.
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note: all "you"'s are the collective "you", not the personal "you".