I don't disagree with you, but other people write on these topics more compellingly, and do not include off-putting Wolfram/Doctorow-style self regard. I chalk it up to his being astoundingly prolific.
These two things can be true at once: Intelligent good people with good taste and good will find an author's writing compelling, interesting and valuable. Simultaneously, other intelligent good people with good taste and good will do not. It happens. Neither are wrong.