There was a time forty years ago I when I lived in Gallup NM, a small town in the middle of nowhere with only 4 radio stations. One station was all in Navajo, one was rock/pop, one was Country and the last was Gospel format. Yes the quality of the Gospel genre was not what one might hope and I listened to very little of it then. It was explained to me that since most listeners listen in their vehicle and only for a few minutes it was perfectly acceptable to play the song “9 to 5” twice and hour all day long.
I have a recollection of driving across all of Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas on a Sunday in August steering a badly over loaded 24’ Ryder truck towing my pickup behind me. Maximum speed may have been 50 mph, no AC and only an AM radio. Under those conditions the only acoustic selections were not so much religious as what I would call “red neck toothless gospel”. My yellow Lab named Bismark was riding shotgun, so we turned up the “Old time Gospel” and Bismark and I had our personal revival the width of all of 3 states combined.
I agree with your general point, that the quality and variety of religious music is vastly improved.
Twila Paris, Phil Driscol, David Meece, John Fahey are examples of those who write and perform as well as anyone. Many C&W acts have worthwhile religious content in their repertoire.