This is all true. Zappa was my hero too when I was that age - in fact I started playing guitar because of Zappa, started composing music because of him, and eventually majored in music composition because of him (dropped out; switched to English later). I guess I've always found him to be an inspirational figure, particularly as a composer of sorta kinda expressionist/anti-modernist 20th Century classical stuff and as a guitarist. Especially as a guitarist. Without Zappa I never would have investigated free jazz, never would have gotten into Derek Bailey or Brotzmann or any of the free improvisers that I love and enjoy. When I first heard "He Used to Cut the Grass" at 12 years old I have to admit his guitar playing gave me a headache - it was so gratuitously noisy and he was playing notes that sounded wrong and it just sounded chaotic and ugly to me and I turned it off in disgust. But I came back to it, and learned the logic of what he was doing and it made me want to try being a guitarist myself. (I had the same reaction hearing Black Flag's Greg Ginn a year or two later - the solo on "Slip It In" gave me a severe headache the first time I heard it and I immediately proclaimed him the worst guitarist of all time....a few days later I came back to it, had a revelation, and IMMEDIATELY proclaimed him THE BEST.)
ANyways, this is all very long-winded but I'm trying to say that I understand where Zappa-haters get off. Even as a major, bootleg-collecting fan, I think Zappa sucks a good 60-70% of the time. A lot of his music DOES suck. Have you ever heard the song "Tinseltown Rebellion?" Ugh. Maybe the worst song ever written. The whole deal was that Zappa was, without trying to be, the ultimate contrarian: if you wanted sleaze, he gave you doo-wop; if you wanted doo-wop, he gave you noisy guitar solos; if you wanted noisy guitar solos, he gave you political harangues; if you wanted political harangues, he gave you sleaze, etc. He always operated as the ultimate Turd in the Punchbowl, so to speak. I get tired of the sleaze and the sexism and the constant jokes about S&M and gay people and the staring too hard to be politically incorrect and the arrogance. Rarely is the bootleg I listen to all the way through. I usually skip to the songs with guitar solos and the instrumentally challenging songs with interesting arrrangements.
Having said all that, I will say that the LAST thing you'll ever hear me say is "Aw, you just haven't heard the right Zappa song yet, man!" Fuck that. I KNOW Zappa is terrible and I would never try to convince anyone else to listen to him.
Much of this could be said about Pete Townshend, Lou Reed, and some other rock "intellectuals" that come to mind.
True, it could be said of them. But of Zappa, there's nothing else to say.
(Except that yeah, he's a very good guitarist, but so is the fusion-y yob you never heard of on the cover of this month's Guitar Player magazine)
(Full disclosure: Zappa was my hero, when I was 13.)