One of my favorites of the more "naturalist" stories you cite by O'Neil with Novick/Giordano art was
in BATMAN 224, about the murder of a black former jazz musician, who in his latter years became impoverished. In the story, Batman sought vengeance for someone who was considered unimportant, but who Batman himself was outraged by the loss of, and sought vengeance for his death, and the truth of what happened to him after the fact.
I thought I was the only one who felt the way you just expressed about the O'Neil/Novick Batman issues, but I too treasure the O'Neil Novick/Giordano BATMAN and DETECTIVE issues just as much as the O'Neil Adams/Giordano ones.
Stories like
in DETECTIVE 418 with Batman and the Creeper.
Or the atmospheric "The Demon of Gothos Mansion"
in BATMAN 227.
such as the above story in BATMAN 224.
I'm not sure I fully get your acclaim vs. influence point. Len Wein not only got acclaim for SWAMP THING for 3 entire years of outstanding work, but also created the New X-men in 1975, and Wein created multiple other enduringly popular breakout characters.
We both explored that, back in the topic when Len Wein died in 2017.
I think you're right that O'Neil had a higher ratio of trailblazing runs, such as on BEWARE THE CREEPER, BATMAN, DETECTIVE, WORLD'S FINEST, GREEN LANTERN, Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations in WEIRD WORLDS (as did Len Wein), SWORD OF SORCERY, THE SHADOW with Michael Kaluta, a
SHERLOCK HOLMES one-shot I enjoyed, A run on SUPERMAN 233-243, and a few issues of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, and many others.
I particularly liked O'Neil's "new WONDER WOMAN" run (issues 178-202) where she had lost her powers, and was a "wonder" based on her exceptional personal ability, on her wits and resourcefulness, rather than on having superpowers.
And a bit of eastern philosophy and mysticism added to the mix, with her older mentor I Ching, martial arts and eastern philosophy being another recurring trait of O'Neil's work in Batman, Wonder Woman, THE SHADOW, JUSTICE INC., RICHARD DRAGON, the "Last of the Dragons" series in EPIC ILLUSTRATED, in DAREDEVIL, and in other O'Neil-scripted series.
I'd say while these other series were interesting, O'Neil's enduring influence was mostly limited to his GREEN LANTERN, BATMAN and DETECTIVE runs. Most of the others were brief assigments where O'Neil provided some interesting twists, but series that once finished, were ideas not continued by others.
I'd say his last influential series was THE QUESTION. Where as we discussed before, O'Neil turned the series into a liberal manifesto that must have annoyed the character's objectivist/conservative creator Steve Ditko. I love O'Neil's THE QUESTION as much or more than Ditko's, just sayin'.
The clearest example of O'Neil's influence on another writer's work is Frank Miller's expansion on the Batman canon with DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and YEAR ONE. And their collaboration as writer/artist and editor on DAREDEVIL.
Much as I love O'Neil's
THE QUESTION run, I don't see that series as inspiring others to do other work in the same tradition as O'Neil in other series. But regardless, a great run. Two mostly stand-alone issues I particularly love are issues 5 and 8.