Me, I think a retelling that affects the reader the way the originals would have affected the hearer is a Good Thing.
If by "a solid look into the mythology" you mean more than a brief acknowledgment that Gaiman has combined different sources into a single story (cf. modern Bible criticism), well, no. But that wouldn't make it a more adult book, just a more academic one.
If by "a solid look into the mythology" you mean more than a brief acknowledgment that Gaiman has combined different sources into a single story (cf. modern Bible criticism), well, no. But that wouldn't make it a more adult book, just a more academic one.