Literary style - worth the effort?

I have tried, with some conscious effort, to create a specific voice for 'Calandra's Spring' and also for each character within the book.  It is quite a trap for writers to spew forth a narrative without thought to this aspect and some tales I have read lately, written by older authors, have no youth at all in their young characters, no contemporary technology and little to differentiate each individual creation.  This takes effort and research.  One author who is a master of this and succeeded amazingly well (given that his stories were written as serials and often he was up against a deadline as he wrote) was Charles Dickens.  His rich folk represented their class, his poor theirs, the educated included more syllables in their words and the length of their sentences varied accordingly.  He worked at this! Flaubert, too, is masterful and a careful scribe.  This is, of course, what takes the time in a book of quality as opposed to say, a dictated/edited Barbara Cartland pulp romance.  Yet, even Ms. Cartland had her audience.  Which only goes to prove that if you have been rejected, you just haven't found the right niche yet!  Good luck and keep up the hunt.