You’re right; it’s not surprising, but not for the reason that you give. It’s not surprising because Gould is a thinker, not a mere high-level technician, like the other people I named. So one is going to get a richer, fuller, more historically grounded and philosophically reflective account of evolution from Gould than from the others I mentioned.
That’s how I read Gould, and Denton, and everything else. You, on the other hand, haven’t read Gould’s account at all, and have looked at Denton’s thought only superficially, and from the outset you were motivated by polemical intent: (a) to prove he was a creationist [false], and (b) to prove his evolutionary thought was worthless [which you haven’t read enough of him yet to know].