The thing is Cornette and Heyman were successful as bookers or promoters in the artistic sense. JC with his work in NWA in 1989, SMW 1991 - 1995, and OVW in the early 2000's. Heyman with his work in ECW, which was at least solid until the end, then Smackdown in 2002. The creative input and success of SMW and ECW was impressive when you consider they had limited funds and started during a big wrestling decline. Maybe not to everyone's taste, but you couldn't call either promotion bad - probably too niche to financially survive.
Russo was a great ideas man/writer for the archaic McMahon, but even back then the WWE had a solid upper echelon of authority figures. He also seemed in his element there, as he probably shared a similar philosophy to the likes of Kevin Dunn. WCW was a mess but he did seem to wield an enormous amount of power (at times) there, evidenced by the TV output. Much of it was panned by critics and fans; the business decline with such big stars and wrestling being popular is evidence it wasn't well received. His own promotion was nothing to write home about, TNA has been hit and miss with a frenetic TV production style until Bischoff came on board.
Pure Russo (pre B.A.C) makes for interesting TV, usually becomes so storyline twisted it becomes incoherent. But its not financially workable as a wrestling promotion outside of the WWE imo.