Oh, was it by chance the "A Plague of Demons" collection? That one's fun.
I think by "journeyman" they mean he's not quite up there with Heinlein and Clarke, et al. Nothing he wrote was awe-inspiring or changed the way SF looked at things. Everything he wrote was entertaining and solidly written, worth reading more than once. I like that more than some ponderous volume about the Meaning of the Universe.
I checked the title, it's "Legions of Space," and was the only Laumer book they had in Borders.
I'm not such a fan of Clarke, though I have read some of it. Haven't read much of Heinlein either, though there are endless Lazarus Long quotes, most all of which I like, posted on this forum.
I minored in philosophy in college, a discipline where they actually do try to figure out abstractions like "the Meaning of the Universe." What I came away from that with is that while I might wish I knew the answers, most of the arguments men have put forward are just a lot of BS, to put it politely.