Sorry to hear that Dragonsbane didn't work for you -- I liked that book a lot (though I did not continue on with the sequels). I liked the protagonists being middle-aged, and I liked the dragon a lot (though it takes a while to get to him).

I do think the style in which fantasy is written has changed a lot between 1985 and now, so I'm actually not too surprised that you found the style jarring (it's almost 4 decades ago after all... that would've been like reading a book from the 40s in the 1980s, you know? I mean, I know that you know, but I find that I have a tendency to think of the 80s as being "about 20 years ago", when really it's much more than that.)