Writers, what is your view?

I completely agree with the Lemonade Bandit... and you hit it on the head too.. Its truly is about a matter of taste. I personally cannot handle Sci-Fi, or Fantasy, but i love children's fantasy... see how i can make it really confusing ;) It is definitely also about genre. If you are writing a story like The Grapes of Wrath then you expect it to be long and torturous, but you could not get away with the same types of description or dialogue with a Stephen King novel. However, on a completely different hand, I once had a teacher tell me we live in a "fast food society". We are a culture that now demands everything instantly. We do not want to wait for anything. This mentality also carries over into literature. We are not a society any longer that wants to read 250 pages of introductions of characters and scene setting (like Lord of the Rings). We want instant satisfaction and expect authors to work their introductions and scenes into their storyline and get on with the "WHAM/BAM" on page one. I think a strong hook in the beginning to grab your readers with a happy mixture of whams and bams set appropriately throughout your story will make your readers happy.