I think that when critics deride the romance genre, they're thinking of those man-ab covers and the florid typefaces, not what's inside the book. That style of cover isn't doing the genre any favors, well, besides selling. But they're been identified with a certain kind of book for so long readers may expect them now, even if they don't like them, or are embarrassed by them. And because the major publishers use that style of cover, so do the self-publishers, and the cycle just goes on and on. If this was my genre, I'd be pissed that my books were getting such a cookie-cutter treatment with the same shirtless guy in infinite variations. It's like publishers are assuming female readers are too stupid to actually read the blurbs of the books they'd be buying, or can't pick up on the nuances of a more sophisticated visual representation. It reminds me of how, in the 1950s, when boxed cake mixes were marketed. The manufacturers then required the users to use one or two fresh eggs, even though eggs could be dehydrated and powdered as part of the mix, because women would feel more like they were really "baking."
Diane Gabaldon's books have mainstream acceptance with just small Celtic symbols on their covers against a field of neutral color, and they sell. There's a trend in YA romances, too, of having just text and some small illos, like John Green's books.
(As an artist, what chaps me to is that all of these guys look like they were painted by the same artist, or that artist's protege! There is no attempt even at an individual style for the mancake.)