Agree with you about this, Vlad. I generally use terms such as "daytime drama," "Gothic serial," or "cult daytime series." If I'm being flip or using verbal shorthand however, I will refer to it as a "Gothic soap opera" (or variation upon that).
I do think it created its own category, and it broke nearly every rule about what was supposed to be done on soaps. Ironically I have read that the popularity of DS was responsible for the creation of a whole new type of publication, soap opera magazines. The first one of these was Afternoon TV and it certainly did feature DS very heavily in its early years.
As I recall it, there was a lot of ambivalence towards DS in the industry. I think actors found it an exciting opportunity because they got to do such different kinds of work on the series. I think a lot of the people behind the camera, producers, directors and such, were baffled by it, though. In the Sixties pop culture, genres and such did not have the kind of media acceptance that they do today. Contrast the press Buffy the Vampire Slayer has enjoyed with typical media reporting of DS back in the Sixties (e. g., the Cleveland Amory review in TV guide). Most critics and reporters simply failed to get the show at all.
Gothick