I don't agree with your assessment of the Left Behind authors. It's not their fault that they wrote a book that people purchased like gangbusters. Their publisher, Tyndale House, publishes the New Living Translation of the Bible. This publisher is very well respected within the Christian community and present a number of different Christian authors that have different eschatology. In addition to Jenkins and LaHaye they also publish Colson, Dobson, Joel Rosenberg, Gary Smalley, George Barna, Karen Kingsbury, Lisa Beamer.
Hey, selling a fairy tale is fine with me if you can dupe enough people into buying it. But to present it a legitimate ecclesiastical eschatology should come within a deceptive trade practice definition. But, I shouldn't get involved in these sorts of matters. I should stick to defense and policy issues, that's what I've spent my adult life studying and doing. As a logical Protestant with, I hope, a modicum of walkin' around sense, the thesis of Left Behind should, and does, offend.