I just finished Snow Crash and found it too pretentious and convoluted, like the turn that Diamond Age does towards the ending. Besides that, it introduces a few interesting concepts, but I feel that similar ideas are developed much better in DA.

For me, Stephenson's masterpiece is Diamond Age, hands down -- minus the ending, if that could be a thing. The last chapters are too obscure just for the sake of obscurity, I've read it three times and I can't get any "deep" meaning to it, just a bunch of wow-cool-but-irrelevant text.

Regarding Cryptonomicon, the first three books, they're straigtforward, interesting, and with a lot of references and trivia but it doesn't try too hard like the "Gods" part of Snow Crash. I really, really enjoyed them.

Unfortunately, I found the Cryptonomicon prequels a nice adventure book in the traditional sense, but the characters were too flat and un-relatable, and it bored me.

Anyway, that's my opinion. Diamond Age introduced me to cyberpunk and, to date, it's my favorite novel of the genre. I've recommended it to many people and they've always liked it. I still dream of the day when we have matter compilators, and victorians look like a bunch of hipsters to me, which is both funny and very realistic. In a world full of technology, rich people will want to go back to a more... simple and comfortable age. It blew my mind.