Top writers are ignoring top writers' advice

In the last couple of weeks, I've read two of the most highly recommended female writers of our generation - Anne Tyler (Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant) and Rose Tremain (The Swimming Pool Season). There is no doubt in my mind that they are both exceptional writers; their prose is inspirational. But taken as a whole, their books - specifically their characters and their stories - leave me pretty cold. 
In neither book was there a single engaging character. In both books, the characters were either brittle and damaged, just plain difficult, or passive pushovers who never learned to stand up for themselves. In both books, there was at least one major character who was a nutjob. 
Both books also go into a tremendous amount of extraneous detail, building up as complicated a picture as possible. And the detail often lacks interest.  There are a lot of dream sequences (yawn) and several totally irrelevant scenes, with new, unusual characters added, that made me wonder if they came from a writing exercise or short story Tyler decided to throw in for good measure.
Dare I say it, AS Byatt does this too - adds page after page of diversion and detail - sometimes in the extreme.
Yet what about all that advice to writers - by some of the world's top writers - to make sure all your subplots and action contribute in some way to the overriding theme or story? Not to mention the advice about dream sequences - leave them out because they bore the pants off people.
Funnily enough, reviews in the Telegraph and Guardian often point out the extraneous detail and unlikeable characters in these books, but they still rave about how these writers are so good.
I don't get it!