[…]rewarding accomplishment rather than incompetence.
I think you are simplifying (or at least whitewashing) her philosophy. What I got from reading Atlas Shrugged is that the unfortunate are all soulless grasping vermin that seek to leech off the successful and drag them down to shame and mediocrity. I very much agree with the essential ideas (as you have stated) of hard work and vision being valued, but she takes these ideas to an extreme that doesn’t even make any sense.
Also, about her writing–in my personal opinion, she is not a great novelist. True, she has very good technical style, being that English is not her first language and all, but that isn’t the only criterion of good writing.