I had a similar arc with Stephenson, though I bounced off Cryptonomicon and never made it to the Baroque Cycle. And I found Anathem really annoying.

*pokes through search since I read it years ago* Here's an angry (locked) rant I made about the myth of Civilisation as a single narrative with rises and falls. Also "If the premise of your book is that people's value is directly proportional to their understanding of maths I expect to be wowed by your mathematical ideas, and so far I am very underwhelmed. Thus, by his own logic my opinion counts more than his and I say his book sucks."

Beyond it's terrible basic assumptions it was a fun science fiction book, as I recall, if suffering a bit from typical late Stephenson bloat.