You have to remember that when Lovecraft wrote those stories, they were for dime serials, and the writers had to produce something simple and direct, of less than a certain amount of words, etc...so he was very limited in what he could do. Once he gained a little bit of notoriety, he was able to be a little more creative...and longer. Personally, call me a lover of hack literature, but I really like his short stories! There have been some tremendous new stories based on his work...Stephen King, Robert Bloch,William Murray, and Alan Foster, to name a few. Check out "The Cthulhu Cycle- thirteen tentacles of terror" edited by Robert Price, published by Chaosium. It has some great stories in it, and it is a great read!
Happy Elder Days!
Greg