The chicken and the egg of modern romance

I just finished reading a rather modern retake on the classic Cinderella story, I am not a reader of modern romance so perhaps I should not generalize about the genre based on this book and a few of Jane Austen's purported heiresses, but after reading the rave reviews by other readers of this particular book I have to wonder what has come of the traditional understanding of love, romance, devotion, and faithfulness.  The hero was about as exciting as the one dimensional 'Prince Charming' in the animated classic, at least the Prince was man enough not to ask Cinderella to become his mistress.  The dude was portrayed as everything a woman could ask for in a man, except for faithfulness, devotion, sacrifice, and commitment, which in my opinion is everything in a man!  The girl was supposed to have 'character,' which was based on some fickle ideal that she would not bring a fatherless child into the world, yet consistently put up with the idiotic professions of 'love' from her ersatz hero and repeatedly put herself in very compromising situations.  She was a modern co-habitating twentysomething lost in regency England, who was willing to put up with anything simply to have a guy in her life who could not even respect her enough to marry her.  If this is the modern idea of romance, I want none of it!  When did eros become a substitute for agape love?  Lust has become the pinnacle of human emotion, leaving no place for self-sacrifice and faithfulness!  We have descended to the level of the animals and, according to the other reviewers of this work, find it a very rewarding experience!  Perhaps this is why I cannot find a living author I like: our sense of virtue and character, those traits that make us human and make a story worth the telling, became 'untrendy' in the 1930's and such works have been few and far between since.  Have our stories become insipid because our culture has or have insipid stories degraded our culture?  I think it goes both ways.  The story started out so well, but failed in the end.  I will return to my old favorites where the best (and worst) of what it means to be human is on display, where women still have the nerve to say no to a man who isn't worth their time and the true heroes have the sense to become worthy of their lady's affection.  Check out the recommended books list in the sidebar to find a 'real' romance!