Hi Newbee - I would say that your experience is quite common. Many people that don't think they like something when they first hear it change their minds later, after more exposure to things more easily understandable.
Artists, too, both composers and performers, react to each other all the time.
There is a movement away from dissonance in the classical music world as well - many of the current composers are writing much more tonal music again. Others are reacting against this.
I think much of it has to do with the times. You mention Berg and Schoenberg - they were living and writing in a time when the world was in the middle of two huge wars, and their music reflected that, as did that of many other composers, in different ways. Much of the minimalism that is being written today is a reaction against that type of music.
A lot more dissonance crept into jazz in the 50s and 60s, as different social movements for change happened, some of them violent. I think the smooth jazz of the 80s and 90s was in part a reaction to that.
An example from earlier in history - Richard Wagner changed music more than any other artist has ever effected his/her art form, though not in the way he thought he would, with his "Gesamtkunstwerks." But for pretty much 100 years after him, every composer had to deal with him and his ideas, and everything was a reaction to it. Music splintered off in so many different directions after that - it was never the same. Even Beethoven did not change music as radically as Wagner did. Ok, enough rambling for the night. :)
