Nonsensical pub argument time

This is Graham Gouldman. You know, the tall geezer who played bass with Manchester's second best band ever (they'd win if Magazine didn't exist). He was fairly succesful before he joined the clever boys and started making clever pop rekkids that took the piss out of pop; long before the Pet Shop Boys thought about it. Anyway after EBP mentioned he'd watched the band in an archive gig on BBC Four we got talking about how his previous career had been as a staff writer of hits for early 60s bands such as the Hollies (Bus Stop) and the Yardbirds (For Your Love) and it suddenly occurred to me that, even more than being the bass player for Manchester's second greatest combo, he had a greater claim to fame.
This man made Eric Clapton quit the Yardbirds. Faced with recording another pop nugget from GG's pen (Heart Full Of Soul, actually) he upped and quit; claiming that he was devoting his puritanical, hypocritical ass to THE BLUES. Like he'd received the tablets from Robert Johnson himself. Pah.
Anyway, this, as any self-respecting pop scholar can tell you, opened the floodgates to the might of Jeff Beck, and even later, James Patrick Page. Clapton, of course went on to make, erm...great psychedelic POP records with Cream and then took up heroin. But this all happened because of GRAHAM GOULDMAN. Pivotal or what? What would have happened if GG hadn't written that song? Would EC have stuck with the, frankly, not quite stellar Yardbirds? Would Beck have made it anyway? Would he have, instead, formed an even better band? The what ifs come pouring out don't they?
So: Graham Gouldman - hero or lanky pretentious bass player with an extensive knowledge of show tunes and complex chords? Go and have a pint and get back to me ;-)