Wolfram's really doing some incredible work, but he gets short-changed in math-related fields because he would rather get on to the next thing rather than get the current thing exactly right. You have to think of him almost as an artist who uses math as his media. Meanwhile, the mean old men who do stuff "right" sit in the cold damp corner of their dungeon-like offices and produce maybe half a dozen papers that are "right" and then rightly ignored by all but their best friends.
Smullyan, my other favorite mad genius, has a 92 year old toe in both pools, God bless him.