Thanks to everyone for the great responses. It's been interesting, based on various posts from previous threads, as well as this one, to read that there is basically 75% praise, and about 25% indifference/dislike for this album.
I hope that more of you will respond to this thread. I enjoy all of your input.
In order to answer my own question, I guess I should first preface that Stevie Nicks has been the "be all and end all" to me in the world of Rock music since I was a wee child. Her music is everything to me. As someone who has suffered from depression, abandonment and homophobia ALL OF MY LIFE, her music (and her voice) has ALWAYS been my security blanket.
When she accepted her Billboard Music Award for songwriting back in 2001, she stated that, in her songwriting, she has always tried to "create little worlds" for all of us to come into, just for a little while. I thought that was the PERFECT statement, because THAT is what her songs have been to me, personally. When I'm sad, there's a world to go to. When I'm driven, there's another world to go to. When I'm angry, fascinated, in love, discouraged, etc, etc. You get the point. I am a music aficionado and I have a gazillion other favorite artists, but no one else does what her music does for me.
Sorry to be so longwinded...so to
ANSWER MY OWN QUESTION, "24 Karat Gold" is like no other Stevie solo album. I've mentioned many times before that there IS no specific ERA here. The songs, all having been written in the past 4 decades, retain the spirit of the time period in which they were written...so many years in the future, when I hear one of them, I don't think I will say, "Oh this is TOTALLY from the 24KG era", like I do whenever I hear, say "Juliet" or "If I Were You" and think back to TOSOTM and RAL, respectively. "All The Beautiful Worlds" will always take me back to The Wild Heart, "Watch Chain" will make me think of Rumours/Tusk era, "Belle Fleur" and "IYWML" will ring with the best of Bella Donna and "24 Karat Gold" will ALWAYS take my musical "child soul" back to late 70's/early 80's classic rock. These songs already meld and flow extremely well in my personal (and very LONG) playlists. They were meant to be there.
And going back to the notion that this album doesn't have an "era" ~ BECAUSE of that, it really doesn't feel like a REAL Stevie Nicks record...and yet it doesn't feel like a compilation album, or "Lost Demo Greatest Hits" either. Much like how a lot of you have described "Night Gallery" or even "Mabel Normand" ~ to me, this album is a collection of "atmospheric moments" and "newly discovered paintings" that were MEANT to either be scattered throughout our own unique "Stevie worlds" or to be used as puzzle pieces to fit into (and make some sort of headway/progress) in the completion process of "all these beautiful worlds".
I apologize if none of this makes any sense whatsoever. It does to me...but I can imagine most of you reading this and scratching your heads and thinking, "what the hell is this guy talking about?"
