I love the /idea/ of Foundation - both the 'science of history' idea, and the idea of making every chapter a different set of characters, tracing the arc of history. But found it to be pretty terrible as an actual book when I went back to re-read it a year or two back. It's 1/3 good idea, 1/3 engineer's disease on galactic scale, and 1/3 creepy male lens. (like, seriously, if an author treats women as nothing more than background furnishings, useful for occasional groping, I start doubting their ability to say interesting+useful things about human society real quick. And 60's sci fi has a TON of this perspective.)
Le Guin is literally exceptional. A fantastic author, who I've loved since I was a kid and can always go back to.
Part of the function of time is to filter out the timeless from the merely timely...