The Guardian has an insightful commentary on the 'intellectual snobbery' which seems to have enveloped discussion of Dan Brown and The Da Vinci Code. Referring to the current copyright lawsuit in London, it goes on:

But the sneering literary set would really like to try him for something completely different. To them, he is guilty of the heinous crime of writing something that a lot of people wanted to read and tell their friends about...The problem is, that's not actually against the law.

I have to agree completely with this article. I've seen a number of people, who were originally completely enthusiastic about the success of a novel on these topics, who now act snobbish and criticise TDVC for poor research and 'pop' writing. Get over it people, it's meant as a fun read!