Your points are all well taken, especially your insight about Rush Limbaugh. The truth is that he was -- and always will be -- one of a kind. The airwaves are filled with people who are poor imitations of the original. He's one of those people who isn't terribly "book smart" based on any academic credentials (he dropped out of college after one year), but he's very sharp and may have one of the best "radio minds" in the business.
The entire industry recognizes this, by the way. I heard a radio broadcast of the induction ceremonies for the National Radio Hall of Fame a few years ago, and almost every inductee (including radio hosts from all across the political spectrum) mentioned him in their acceptance remarks. It's generally understood in the radio business that his brilliant idea of syndicated talk radio saved the AM dial from extinction, after all the top music stations moved over to the FM band in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Some TV and radio hosts may be good "entertainers," in the sense that they attract a lot of listeners, without being terribly smart by any objective measure. There are some hosts who I don't find interesting enough to listen to them for several hours at a time, but they are extremely smart and would (in my opinion) be perfect as guest hosts on specific topics that are right up their alley. I'd count Mark Levin and Laura Ingraham among these. Levin may be the sharpest legal mind on constitutional matters that I've ever heard on the air, and Ingraham's credentials speak for themselves (Dartmouth graduate, lawyer, clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, etc.). I just don't think either one of them is cut out to mass-produce 3-4 hours of material on the air at a time.
Lynn Samuels was a real blast from the past. She passed not long ago. I don't know how smart she was, but she was certainly genuine and a real New York personality.
At any rate, I stand by my comment about the industry being dominated by intellectual mediocrities. For the most part, these hosts are no different than Hollywood entertainers. Their success has little or nothing to do with how smart they are, and there sure are a lot of double-digit IQs among them.
There is something about your comments that smells to high heavens. There is a pervasive arrogance and sense of self- importance that I find repulsive.