I'll agree about Rod Stewart; Maggie May was the last thing he did that impressed me. Although I admit it REALLY impressed me, and got me into the Faces, which led to the Small Faces, Humble Pie, and a couple of years later to this guitarist named Peter Frampton, but that's another embarrassing story...
As far as Elton, I stuck around through '75 or so. Fun stuff if you ask me. Of course, if you're the kind of person for whom everything has to be deep and fraught with meaning, I guess you should stick to more "important" stuff...