Jane Rejected: Would she have made it?

This one author, David Lassman, had gotten rejected by several different publishers, so he decided to try an experiment. He sent out the first few chapters of Northhanger Abbey, one of Jane Austen's books to publishers and agents, to see if they would reject Jane Austen. He changed the heroine's name from Catherine Morland to Susan Maldorn-- as well as changing the title to Susan. He also took the pseudonym of Alison Laydee,  To his surprise, nobody noticed. They just sent back rejection letters.
Then, he decided to continue the experiment, sending out Persuasion, under the title The Watsons. Again, people rejected it. Every publisher or agent rejected it.
Then, he got desperate. He sent out the first few chapters of Pride and Prejudice, under the title First Impressions, which happened to be an early draft title for the original story. The names and character names were changed, but not very well. Mr. Bennet became Mr. Barnett and so on. He even left the famous first line in.
Only one publisher out of several wrote back that it was plagarism. 
His response was:
"Thank-you for sending us the first two chapters of First Impressions; my first impression on reading these were ones of disbelief and mild annoyance, along, of course, with a moment's laughter.
"I suggest you reach for your copy of Pride and Prejudice, which I'd guess lives in close proximity to your typewriter, and make sure that your opening pages don't too closely mimic that book's opening."
 After the story was released, Penguin, whose letter had read, "Thank you for your recent letter and chapters from your book First Impressions. It seems like a really original and interesting read.", stated that it would not have been read. The letter said it "seems" interesting.
Christopher Little, J.K. Rowling's agency stated "Our letter was a polite note declining representation and provided a standard response. Our internal notes did recognise similarities with existing published works and indeed there were even discussions about possible plagiarism."
This makes me think about two questions. If Jane Austen had been born in this world, would she have made it? I think so. She was published in 1811, with Sense and Sensibility, and she only was published through a connection of her brother's, since her brother was fairly well-to do. That could still happen today.
My second question is, what has publishing come to today, that Jane Austen, possibly one of England's greatest authors, would not instantly be recognized? It makes sense that publishers look at other things (e.g. vampire novels, for all the plagarism of that), but that doesn't mean that they would not recognize Austen.