Wallbangers or Authors who need editors.

There are some authors I have just given up on. They often start with very good ideas, but go no where with them. Anne Rice is my best example. Her early books such as "Interview with the Vampire" & "Vampire Lestat" had good flow, and overall I think she has the talent to create a world on paper. However, her books that followed just seemed to end up as a mess. I attempted a number of them with high hopes, but somewhere in my reading ended up tossing the books across the room until they met the wall with a thud. Where are the editors? Is Rice such a blockbuster writer that a publisher would not dare suggest she get a second opinion? Maybe a second pair of eyes would figure out the geneology in "Lasher" is incorrect or key elements in a story just disappear (a main character can tell the history of an object by touching it, but it never adds to the plot or is really explained). Those I have managed to finish tend to slide down a hill of impossibility and leave more questions open then answered by the last page. Yet I still see her pop onto the NYTimes best seller list over and over.

I think JK Rowling would have benefitted greatly from a good editor's advice in her last two Potter books. I'm not sure I'll even bother with the new one.

Any authors you enjoyed in the past that you have now given up on due their inability to deliver a good solid story? Have you had the personal urge to go over a work with a red pen and rewrite scenes for a more intelligent outcome? Is the role of the editor meanlingless if people will buy a book based solely on the author's name?