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I think the main reason is that the art on Gruenwald's series just wasn't as good as Dave Gibbons' on WATCHMEN. Not a crime, since few artists are as good as Gibbons. 

As for superhero families -- Marvel shouldn't have any. With DC it's fine until it gets out of hand. The Batman extended "family" is too big. Too many people with Flash/speed force powers. Too many Green Arrow/archer types. Too many Green Lanterns from Earth (the GL Corps was born as a Corps, so no point in complaining about all 3600 or however many there are of them). 

Strangely enough, there are only couple "Wonder Woman family" people -- Donna Troy and Cassie Sandsmark. (I'm not counting other Amazons for the same reason I don't count the GL Corps writ large.)

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I rather liked the Bob Hall art on the first 9 issues but switching artists for the last three issues probably didn't help either. Not that Paul Ryan isn't a good artist and storyteller too, but it would've been nice to have gotten the same artist for all 12 issues of the mini-series. Wonder why Hall didn't complete it? 

Anyway, you're right that the art on Watchmen was better. It's also some of Gibbon's best art ever. He really raised his game on that series and some of the best stuff he did, like the segues between panels, were things that you hadn't seen much in comics before.

Edit: Another thing I found interesting and rather amusing was JB bringing up that Gibbons referred to the grim n gritty comics that followed in Watchmen's wake as "glum." That's perfect!

There's no organic growth about someone seeing Green Arrow and being inspired, and deciding to try to emulate the ace archer. Or about Wonder Woman finding someone who can be a partner or sidekick to her... it's just "Crisis done.. BAM! There they are!"

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Now that I think about it, the multiple-artist factor may have something to do with MIRACLEMAN never receiving the level of praise that WATCHMEN got (and gets). If, say, Alan Davis or John Totleben had drawn all 16(?) issues of MIRACLEMAN then it might have -- no pun intended -- eclipsed WATCHMEN's reputation.

As it stands I prefer MIRACLEMAN as a story, although it's inspired far too much "violence porn" in mainline superhero comics. In particular, see every story that James Robinson has written for DC for the last ten years or so, especially his unbearable JUSTICE LEAGUE: CRY FOR JUSTICE mini-series.

I do like Batgirl.

I do like Supergirl.

I do like the adventures of Superman when he was a boy.

And Dick Grayson is my Robin (even if Tim was a good one too).

 

... the little punk created by G Morrison was sometime funny, sometime boring. And i have no interest in Cass. Jason writen by Doug Moench was not bad, but Dick was the real deal.