Everyone is entitled to their opinion. You, and I, as well, don't happen to agree with this one. After Asimov, RAH is my second favorite SciFi author, having read his entire catalog, many, multiple times. I have my favorites and disfavorites but, across the board, even with his teen stories and his later "dirty old man" books, his books all make interesting reads. His predictions just add to his legacy.
No doubt, I'm also a cranky opinionated life long Science Fiction reader, and we are definitely in agreement. I read as much Heinlein as I could get ahold of as a young man. There's no better fuel for a young nerd than stories of sex, heroic individualism and engineering with a healthy dose of libertarianism. And I know how well regarded Heinlein is in his field.
But what bothers me is the snow-clone nature of that statement that Heinlein was not recognized. It's like a knee -jerk default hyperbolic internet article closing, and I don't think it was true. Especially compared to people like Asimov and Clarke. They all had their little heyday as modern day prophets and fell by the wayside in the wider popular consciousness, no more "consistency" in recognition than any other. PKD, on the other hand seems to be bonafide cultural darling.
>But what bothers me is the snow-clone nature of that statement that Heinlein was not recognized.
It's flat out not true by any meaningful measurement. As the peer comment said, Heinlein, Asimov, and Clarke were widely recognized as the big 3 of a certain era of science fiction. Maybe Asimov was the best known of the 3 to the broader public if only because he was so prolific. Clarke basically retired to Sri Lanka and neither wrote nor spoke much after that. (And even many science fiction fans might have trouble remembering one of his book titles today.)
But, as for Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land isn't my favorite but it did have a degree of mainstream success. And he was very well known, if somewhat controversial, in genre circles.
I think a lot of PKD's cachet comes from TV and film adaptations. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of his writing but there have been quite a few popular and/or critical TV shows and movies adapted to greater or lesser degrees from his books and short stories.
