Unfortunately Lord Foul's Bane was published a few weeks after the Sword of Shannara, which turned out to be a huge seller (and also a more comfortable read- 'heroes' instead of leper rapists, questions about how using power might corrupt 'heroes' etc). So then we have 'sword and sorcery' and D&D inspired fantasy for decades (Dragonlance the Belgariad, Jordan etc).

I actually still think that Donaldson is a great writer (albeit one with a fairly large and depressingly dark vocabulary), but I remember those few weeks when Lord Foul's Bane was the bestseller.
And then Sword of Shanarra (Tolkien ripoff came along), and we were doomed to dwarves and elves and peasant farmboys for quite a while.

I don't think that any fantasy writer has ever gone as 'dark' as the Covenant books do (except for the torture porn type of fantasy), and also has as much insight into what a somewhat realistic 'hero' journey might be like, or gives as much insight as to why any 'hero' would want to fight for a world. I loved the first three ASOIAF books (A Storm of Swords might be the best fantasy novel yet written, IMHO), but Martin's seemed to be under pressure since then. Since the internet an author doesn't have the luxury of waiting 37 years to complete a series, and that shows.

I wish that we (as consumers), and publishers (as theoretically purveyors of good books) would just give fantasy authors a break now, and let them write their stories. It might save readers from the debacle that became the 'complete' Wheel of Time series, Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth (great ideas, great world building, nosedived more quickly than even Dragonlance or Pern did).