The same story - vastly different results

Have I mentioned how much I love my kindle. Well, let me repeat it. I do and here is one significant reason. Backlists, a lot of author backlists are now available on kindle at reduced prices. So if I hear even a hint of a good review for an author, I'll check their backlist and buy the book that most appeals to me.
It's a great way of discovering new authors, and finding books that might not be available in my local bookstore or that I missed the first time around.
In doing so, I bought a historical romance with a lower class thief for a heroine and a hero who needs her to act like she's always been nobility. And then Molly handed me a romance by another author with almost that exact same storyline.
The same storyline told by two different authors. Fun, right, to see how voice can affect a story. It's hard not to make direct comparisons, which have not been kind to one of the stories.
One is rich, beautifully detailed, grounded in realistic details and really engrossing. Both the hero and heroine are fascinating, well written and imperfect, with great internal conflict.
The other is cute. The heroine is cute, perfect, gets along with everyone and the hero is a little bland and the story itself is exactly what you expect all the way through. And read by itself it would be fine, but in comparison it's plain white rice next to mushroom risotto.
The difference between the two is characterization and detail. One heroine immediately becomes the perfect lady, almost without effort and with little conflict. The other struggles to find a way to fit into both worlds and the choice is inherent with conflict for both leads. In one every opportunity for conflict is capitalized on and in the other, conflict, what conflict, everyone is so nice.
It's been an interesting experiment. One I might definitely repeat.