Stories, of all genres and lengths, should make an impact on people, whether it is "just" for entertainment, to get a message across or what have you. I don't see anything wrong in "just" writing to entertain people. Life can be horrible enough at times so writing for entertainment does have a value of its own. (Is it just me here or is this kind of thing looked down on? Would P.G. Wodehouse have been taken more seriously, for example, if he hadn't been a humorous writer?).
So when reviewing your stories, ask yourself what kind of impact are they having on you? Put the stories aside for a while, read them again and ask yourself if they are still having that impact? Could you envisage them having a different impact from what you intended?
Beta readers are brilliant here if you are lucky enough to have people willing to do this. Nobody is ever going to please everybody (and I don't think you should try either, you write what you feel you must write and get it to as high a standard as possible), but if the impact you wanted to make is the one being picked up on by other readers, then you know that story is going to have a real chance out there.