i do know and love 3 very unknown unfamous artists, and i think they live a better life like that. Moya, Pippo Pollina (italian musician living in switzerland, therefor known "more" in the german speaking region) and Aimee Mann (music to Magnolia, now quite known because of that movie).
just look at the book of moya: while the hightimes of clannad she had a lot of publicity and a lot of "wrong friends", she wasn't happier than, right?
or Aimee Mann: she had a MTV TopTen Hit with her group
'Til Tuesday but then all the producers wanted to have songs like "Voices carry" but she wanted to do something else. result: the first company let her drop and the next company didn't wanted to publish her songs, but refused also to free her to publish them somewhere else. she is tall and blond, so they must have thought "this is going to be the new star!"
in the end, aimee bought her songs back, made her own company (Super Ego Records

) and is producing herself. and she gives also other musicians a chance (United Musicians, another project of her and her husband). she may not sell as much as others, but she gains more money with an album than most others. and here you see how good internet is: she sells directly from her website.
so i think moya does great, even though i would love to hear her songs or clannad songs on the radio and i also wished more people would understand why i'm so in love with her music. but if she would be so famous we couldn't go and talk to her after a concert, which was the best thing of the whole evening.