Interesting point

[roger]

no one is saying that technical skill is not important, and certainly, when coupled with inspiration, is where great art happens.

this article, has some interesting points about this thread's questions:
Kyle Gann

The American composers of those and even later generations - George Frederick Bristow (1825-1898), John Knowles Paine (1839-1906), George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931), Edward MacDowell (1860-1908). Horatio Parker (1863-1919) - were not of the same stature. They did not create a new artform. Their music is a pale imitation of the European aesthetic of their day. In vain one listens to their symphonies, tone poems, piano pieces, and string quartets, for a new feeling for melody, a new sense of form, a departure from Europe. They were timid. Their emphasis was not on a bold new beginning, but on a sense of correctness, a balance learned rather than created, and a desire to impress. At their very best - as in, say, Chadwick's string quartets - one finds an energetic smoothness, but even here the music seems to plead, "Look - I followed all the rules. Isn't that enough?" Absent is any creative spark, or even the tenderness of Heade's obsessive exploration of hummingbirds and exotic orchids. Their hulking climaxes are poorly calculated, and not even their adagios seem deeply felt.

I guess we're not the first ones to raise the question, eh?