If they didn’t like how things are they would put pressure on him to be more serious and give screen time to other characters. The saying is true an author is only as good as his readers are. Japanese authors will never compete with English, Chinese, Russian literary authors throughout history because their target audience are much much more critical and intelligent
We can't say that Tolstoj could have drawn a manga as good as One Piece even though he was an amazing author. It goes the other way for Oda and long form novels.
It's apples and oranges.