As fantasy hit the big leagues in the 80s, it became underwent the homogenization that all popular genres do. A great many people read with a genre precisely because they know what to expect, and they don't want to be surprised. I used to work at a used bookstore, and I didn't have much luck expending the horizons of fantasy fans into the less prominent regions of their genre. People who read 4-6 books a week would sometimes ask me for a recommendation (this was in the mid-90s), and I'd suggest something like Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, or Michael Moorcock. The feedback was not positive. These guys knew exactly what they wanted, and they wanted more of the same (Dragonlance, Eddings, Brooks, Goodkind, etc.).
It is disheartening that a genre that had its roots in weirdness should have evolved into comfort food. The kind of exotic and strange works that were common in the early days of the genre (Howard, Vance, Lieber, C.L. Moore, Clark Ashton Smith) would have little chance of gaining traction in the modern fantasy market. That has changed somewhat in the last 10 years, led by Mieville. But even his works are shunted into a sub-genre that has to be labeled 'weird fantasy.' To my way of thinking, 'weird fantasy' should be a redundancy, like 'spy espionage,' or 'pulpy noir.'
