The Unbearable Lightness of Being was a sexually transmitted book, later mercifully replaced on American dating websites by Haruki Murakami, who spared a generation of American men from having to read Kundera.
I do find this sentence quite unkind towards Dave Matthews though: "Milan Kundera is the Dave Matthews of Slavic letters, a talented hack, certainly a hack who's paid his dues, but a hack nonetheless". If a hack is talented and "pays his dues", he stops being a hack, surely? What does it take to be an accomplished artist then, apart from being David Bowie?
Your question cuts to the heart of what makes art art, and I can't answer it. But hard work and perseverance doesn't make a hack into an artist; it just makes them a more prolific hack.
It's funny - as someone seemingly a little bit younger than you, I'm pretty sure your top recommendation, The Master & Margarita, did replace Kundera, at least in my experience.
(which - no disrespect to Bulgakov and tongue planted in cheek - is a shame, because Kundera's better!)
I like Murakami, but I think he'd make for a poor "sexually-transmitted book". Most women I know would treat a line-up of his work on a shelf as a bit of a red flag, actually.
[0] https://idlewords.com/2005/11/dating_without_kundera.htm
He is.
(Well, on the Internet anyone can be a cow, but bar shenanigans on this specific post, this cow and that cow are the same cow.)
I still disagree with your reading on Kundera, though I found unbearable lightness of being his least interesting work. The joke, "risibles amours" and immortality are great.
Somebody who like both Kundera and Boulgakov.
As novel, it is hard for me to split between immortality and the joke. The joke touched me more, immortality is more "serious".
But hey, I am French, so my immune system against this kind of thing is definitely weak. And I did read those as teenagers, and girls were definitely part of the appeal, at least originally