While The Stand is one of my very favorite SK books (after Dead Zone), there were things in it that were offputting to me.
I get that Vegas is Sin City, where nothing is natural, it's an artificial facade, it's a place built on vice, and sure, let's nuke it. Within the larger context, the point was being made East is good, West is bad, and that bothered me. Having traveled a bit, I will grant that there is corruption (and goodness) everywhere, but in the older (i.e., East) cities, the corruption is older and more ingrained. When I came west to live (and away from the Chicago influence), I enjoyed the comparative lack of corruption in public institutions, and it was a bit jarring to me to read "East is more morally upright than West." I confess that I'm quite possibly putting more into it than the author intended.
Another part, and now this is just me projecting again, is the whimsical wish to go back to a world of magic where water flows uphill and fairies dot the landscape with frost. That's nice and fanciful, but in my view, all that "go back" stuff refers to made-up things, because the world was never like that, and believing that it was, aside from entertainment value (I like LOTR as much as anyone), slows down our appreciation of, and ability to deal with, the world as it actually exists. "We don't like an unpredictable world. Let's have supernaturalism so we can figure it out!" I don't favor that approach.
Okay, yeah, I'm making too much of it. And I really, really did like the book.