For what it's worth, this fangirl thinks you are and always will be a wonderful writer whose books are important, even if you never publish anything else again. Though that notion makes me rather sad.

And speaking as an academic, one of the best resources I found for what might be my most important paper (if we ever write it) was a collection of North American womens' letters and diaries from a couple centuries ago. Admittedly you might not leave your journals to the Peg Kerr Appreciation Society, but as Naomi mentioned there's the general study of SF/F, and there's also people studying people. What they see, how they view the world, what that says about the world. In my case, what language they use and how...