As much as I enjoyed the Soulless series I don’t think as a middle age male I was the target demographic. They were sappy romantic and only passingly referred to the sex. But I like the world premise and they were a good pulpy read.
The Sirantha Jax books were fun space opera but parts got uncomfortably close to romance novel.
Except that romance is still it’s own literary genre, even though it’s sometimes classified under women’s lit. I do think that romance is now it’s own section at B&N, while I do believe there is just a general literature section there. Amazon is probably a better idea of what’s available via genre, mainly due to them having everything in multiple categories.
I’ll also say that it’s not like romance (which often are cheap, mass market paper backs as opposed to hardback, high quality books) are at the front of the store or in prominent locations in book stores, even despite dominating the publishing market in the chart you linked to.
But once again, despite the economic power of the genre, they are still considered marginal to the publishing industry and general separated at the back of the store in their own category. Also, I didn’t say you’re casting aspersions or that anyone here was, just that it’s still marginalized as a genre because it’s not considered a serious genre.
Which I don’t think has happened, other than playing up stereotypes about what people will read. I think the only reason that writers like Jane Austen and the Brontes are now being taken seriously as literature is because people fought for that to happen and that academics who help drive the canon, mostly women I’d imagine, helped to get those writers included in the canon of literature.
I’m not sure what you mean by western or thrillers being moribund, though, as there seems to be plenty of both available via amazon? Maybe you just don’t like the newer stuff you’ve read?
Well, but those of us who love books have been into those second hand shops with far less categorization (maybe just some general categories, like fiction, non-fiction, history, children’s, cook books, sci-fi/fantasy, biography, religion, etc) and those work just as well. I’d argue that these categories (like Romance or women’s lit or what have you) can act to reinforce our own ingrained stereotypes about some kinds of writing or writers and as a result, we don’t branch out like we should into new things. I think the only thing it really works for is lining publisher’s pockets! 
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