> think what happened in that time was a kind of competition, where critics like these had a tendency to write things that are more difficult to read, in an attempt to prove how much more literate they are.

Are... these reviews considered difficult to read or especially overwritten, then? Or did you mean something else?

> bad rhetoric, involved syntax, stilted sentiment and incoherent English

Are these not legitimate grounds on which to judge a book? To the extent that these are smaller concerns for modern reviewers (are they?) I'd guess it has more to do with our having settled on a style of prose that allows little variation and is very simple, for a large majority of literature. We now expect and receive little poetry in our prose, to put it another way.