From Duncan McDonald's book "The Development of Muslim theology, Jurisprudence, and Constitutional Theory -
"In this long conflict, the most prominent figure was certainly that of Ahmad ibn Hanbal. He was the trust and strength of the orthodox; that he stood fast through imprisonment and scourging defeated the plans of the Mu'tazilites (innovating, reasoning theologians, in power and willing to persecute for their new dogmas)... Scholastic theology (kalam) was his abomination. Those who disputed over doctrines he cast out. That their dogmatic position was the same as his made no difference. For him, theological truth could not be reached by reasoning (aql); tradition (naql) from the fathers (as-salaf) was the only ground on which the dubious words of the Koran could be explained. So, in his long examinations before the officials of al-Ma'mum and al-Mu'tasim, he contented himself with repeating either the words of the Koran which for him were proofs or such traditions as he accepted. Any approach to drawing a consequence he utterly rejected. When they argued before him, he kept silence...
"Ahmad ibn Hanbal, saint and ascetic, was the idol of the masses; and he, in their eyes, had maintained single-handed the honor of the Word of God. For his persecutors there was nothing but hatred.
(After explaining the doctrines of one of a long line of neo-platonic mystics, collectively "sufis", not a sect but a "calling", like "monk") - "To Ibn Taymiya all this was the very abomination of desolation itself. He had no use for mystics, philosophers, Ash'arite theologians, or, in fact, for anyone except himself. A contemporary described him as a man most able and learned in many sciences, but with a screw loose... He was the reviver for his time and the transmitter to our time of the genuine Hanbalite tradition, and his work rendered possible the Wahhabites... He was the champion of the religion of the multitude as opposed to that of the educated few... His bases were Koran, tradition from the Prophet and from the Companions and analogy. Agreement, in the broad sense of the agreement of the Muslim people, he rejected. If he had accepted it he would have been forced to accept innumerable superstitions... The agreement of the Companions he did accept, while convicting them right and left of error as individuals...
"Wahhabism... is a branch of the school of Ibn Taymiya. Manuscripts of the works of Ibn Taymiya copied by the hand of Ibn al-Wahhab exist in Europe. So the Wahhabites refused to accept as binding the decisions of the four orthodox sects of canon law (i.e. they are a law unto themselves). Agreement as a source they also reject. The whole People of Muhammad can err and has erred (despite a direct Koranic verse to the contrary - any principle of consent contradicts their principle of omnipotent literalist tradition, so it must go, even if literalism and tradition themselves both support it, as they do). Only the agreement of the Companions has binding force for them (thus they finesse the verse, while abolishing any sort of consent on the part of their modern contemporaries).
"It is, therefore, the duty and right of every man to draw his own doctrine from the Koran and the traditions; the systems of the schools should have no weight with him (no theology)... They profess to be the only true Muslims... Like Ibn Taymiya, they reject intercession of saints with God (no devotional mysticism)... All such ceremonies are idolatrous. Whenever possible the Wahhabites destroy and level the shrines of saints...
"...the controversy throughout all Arabia (in 1903!) is whether Ibn Taymiya and al-Ghazzali (the great Ash'arite theologian, in a way the Acquinas of medieval Islam) can be called sheiks of Islam. The Wahhabites hold that anyone who thus honors al-Ghazzali is an unbeliever, and the Meccans retort the same of the followers of Ibn Taymiya."
Yes, there is a struggle over the future of Islam - which is hardly a new situation. There generally is a struggle over the future of an entire civilization, and there has been in Islam perennially. It is not simply Wahhabis vs. orthodoxy, however. Wahhabi doctrines have wider echoes in traditional Islam, heard outside their own sphere. We can certainly recognized from evangelical protestants the power of the idea of literalism, every man with his sacred book his own judge of what is right, seeing themselves as the only real believers amid a cloud of pettifoggers masking unbelief behind high flown theories of theology, or chasing mystic trendies of dubious orthodoxy.
What can crack this appeal? Not aggressive secularism, which only convinces those who take their religion seriously that reason leads straight to unbelief. Not defenses of rationalism so thinly covered with a mere veneer of religion that you can see the greek philosophy sticking out on all sides. But Ghazzali is another matter. He is no unbeliever. Nor is he an intellectual or historical lightweight. For those who can think, the richness and greatness of Ghazzali's thought shows what is missing in the Wahhabis and everything like them.
Scholars in the west have been too incliend to attack Ghazzali, trying to defend the medieval Islamic Aristotelian philosophers he argued so forcefully against, thinking they are thereby furthering "reason" within Islam. It is the wrong approach, far too "ambitious", and insufficiently respectful of the faith of the audience. Thinking that tearing down "theology" would reduce "religion" in favor of "secularism", they have only driven the religious to literalism. The only antidote to literalism is a theology that is not a mere veneer, but sincerely religious.
Ghazzali is a great enough historical figure, and a learned enough writer, to rally a moderate but believing Islam around. It may be that afterward, the Muslim world will have things to say to modernity , or things to learn from it. But a conversation rather than a holy war is possible, between modernity and followers of al-Ghazzali. The same cannot be said for Ibn Taymiya. You will however find Ibn Taymiya's standing rather higher just now - only partially for the reasons you state (Saudi funding e.g.). Partially it is for the same reasons evangelicals are rather more popular than Thomists. Partly it is because some are waving around Islam like a flag for political purposes and think "the more intransigent the better", without caring a wit for truth or religio. Partly it is because a defensive desire for "authenticity" seeks refuge in more blatant and more extreme marks of distinction, and strident literalism seems more anti-secular, anti-western than scholastic theology.
For what it is worth...