I dunno. I think you're being a bit rough on the Hacks series. I've got at least/about the same number of O'Reilly books and find them to generally be high quality. The OS X Hacks series (I've got both) has a number of general/power user tips, granted. They've got their fair share of hackerer.
Granted, not all that series are up to the levels as, say, Spidering Hacks. On the other hand, I've flipped through content before buying and never felt misled about the series or particular title.