[Quiet Man Cometh]

People like familiarity. Consdier Sherlock Holmes for example. He's a very flat character. He doesn't change, doesn't develop, and typically reacts to the same way to the same things. That predictability becomes an endearing part of the character. It happens in TV shows too. In some ways, books tend to get formulaic for the same reason. I think the shared worlds books put out by TSR, then Wizards of the Coast are like that, and it seems they also take up the bulk of the shelf when I walk to the fantasy/sci-fi section in the bookstores.

It wouldn't surprise me if publishers make efforts to put what might be called a "good" fantasy book in a different genre, for the reason that fantasy and sci-fi tend not to be taken all that seriously. Tolkein books are found in fantasy but he has his name to beat out the genre, while half the time I've seen books by G.G.Kay, also fantasy, worked into general fiction. The same goes for Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake which has been considered sci-fi and speculative fiction, yet I have never seen it in that section. As a result of this, the "fantasy" genere tends to stay within it's sterotype while what some would believe are the better fantasy books wind up elsewhere.