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I know I am jumping into this thread rather late, but I do have a few thoughts.
The first is that unless the style is so bad as to be distracting (i.e., frequent obvious mistakes in grammar, or long passages of unconnected sentences, etc.), style rarely makes an impression with me. In fact, the post-modern emphasis on style over telling a good story has been something that has generally kept me away from "serious" literature.
Honestly, there are many books that would not be considered great literature that can be excellent exercises for the mind. Certainly Hard Science Fiction and many Mystery novels require quite a bit of thought from the reader.
Ultimately though, I am not sure how "useful" great literature really will be in improving your chances in the modern world. If you want to be the next Dan Brown or Steven King (In terms of success), it is probably better to read those authors than to read the so called greats of our era that can't get on the best seller list unless Oprah picks them for her book club.
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Bill
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