I take your point about the fact that Liu is using some really old techniques with panache, and you're totally right that he pulls it off for large chunks of the book. But my feeling is that if I wanted to read that stuff, I would go read Lucretius or Sima Qian or Homer or Beowulf, you know? Those techniques don't speak to any of the reasons I read epic fantasy, or any of what I like about the (sub)genre. Which is why I don't think it's revolutionary; if anyone follows in Liu's path, it's not going to produce books I want to read or that will make the genre more interesting.