Gould is someone I don't have much respect for. The thing that he's most well known for (Punctuated Equilibrium) is a kind of theory that I call "either trivial or wrong". I.e., the way Gould describes exactly what he means by Punctuated Equilibrium isn't very clear. If you interpret it one way (that mutations happen more often during certain times in history, i.e., those where there is massive climate change or other changes to the environment) then it is obviously true but trivial. Everyone already knew that when Gould published his work. If you take the more extreme interpretation, that adaptations ONLY occur during such periods then it is a new theory but is clearly wrong. I think many people don't realize this because the way Gould writes isn't very clear so he can provide evidence that supports the trivial version of his theory and pretend that it supports the more extreme version.

Another reason I don't care much for Gould is that I think he behaved in a very unprofessional manner in his criticism of E.O. Wilson and Sociobiology. He equated Sociobiology with all sorts of ideologies that is has nothing to do with. It got to the point where Wilson (who politically is far to the left) couldn't give presentations on college campuses without being disrupted by people calling him a fascist and much of that was based on Gould's unfair and incorrect criticism of Wilson's work. For more detail on this I recommend reading the first chapter in Cosmides and Tooby's excellent book on Evolutionary Psychology: The Adapted Mind. There is a PDF of that chapter here: The Psychological Foundations of Culture. It's worth reading for other reasons as well, it is an excellent introduction and overview to the relatively new field of Evolutionary Psychology (which IMO is mostly Sociobiology rebranded with a more acceptable name).

BTW, I'm not a fan of Wilson's latest work on Group Selection but I still think he was brilliant and a pioneer and was treated very unfairly by Gould. That was a complete tangent because you mentioned Gould, I'll reply to your main point in another comment.