Well, in The Beatles defence they were- when they emerged - head and shoulders ahead of anything else in the UK ( don't talk about The Stones with their weak singer and uninspiring cover versions, and even when they got going as songwriters a lot of their material was just cynically milking the "bad boys" image that Oldham had worked hard to create)

I think a good way of accessing a act's worth is to see how they were viewed by their contemporaries, and The Beatles were held in awe by almost the whole world of pop/rock music.