I felt mildly guilty for enjoying fantasy stories when I read this (probably not the author's intent) but then, thinking on it further, I realized this was unjustified. The reason why I enjoyed them wasn't because I had some sort of yearning to live in a world of magic. If Omega offered to transport me to Krynn or Middle Earth I'd refuse, even if it offered to send everyone I knew and loved with me. I know that modern technology is far better at satisfying our basic needs than magic, and find the idea of living in a medieval fantasy world to be only slightly less terrifying than the prospect of living in a real medieval world. Fantasy worlds are optimized for stories, not for living. And this isn't some recent revelation that has occurred to me. I can't remember a time when this wasn't the way I felt.

Basically, fantasy stories work for me because they combine two things I like, reading about high stakes conflicts, and reading about unique and novel places. They also have the bonus of, as several other commenters have pointed out, being a little more in tune with raw human intuitions about the way reality ought to work, and allow the individual characters to feel a little more significant.

I suppose I do feel a vague positive feeling of achievement when I see someone cast an awesome spell, but it doesn't feel that different from the feeling I get when I see John Rambo ambush people. I think it's just "awesomeness+novel setting" that makes me enjoy it.

That being said, your essay probably does describe some people, so it's still definitely worth reading and writing.