Does Story Trump Craft?

Does Story Trump Craft? is a question on Rachelle Gardner's blog.
The craft does not go away. With self publishing you are seeing an influx of unfiltered stories out there. But those weak stories have always been there. People have always written them. People have always self published who’s story lacked severely. Instead of an agent deciding who’s story lacks and who doesn’t, in self publishing, we the readers decide. The reason plot driven stories succeed is because there are too many book a holics who run out of character driven books. But even the people who usually exclusively read Harlequin recognize when they see something of true craft that are built around the characters and not the plot. With things like 50 shades of gray being so popular, you run into the issue of sex sells but sex is plot and not character. In my research of writing, writing is always a trend. But you can either be the trend or chase the trend. Anyone who is now starting to write about vampires will be chasing the trend. Anyone who crafts a book and drives it through characters are the trend,even if their character driven book happens to be vampires. Don’t forget, for the $30 bottle of wine there is always a box of wine being sold. For every can of Miller Lite, someone is crafting a micro brew that Miller could never touch. Last example, store bought bread versus mom’s home made bread. Craft is always superior.