Very good article. Great analogies. If you guys would have had the sweet potato fries my girlfriend made tonight, you would have agreed with paragraph 2. TOO MUCH CAYENNE!
Anyway... I used to really like "shredding". And I guess I'm talking 80's shredding. Vinnie Moore, Tony Macalpine, Paul Gilbert, Jason Becker, etc. It used to be about playing very fast, but done in a fitting and tasteful manner. I don't even think it's the "playing fast" as much as it was "playing at tempo".
It's kind of like a comedian delivering a good joke in an abrupt manner. It really catches us off guard, but in a good way. Sometimes the same joke wouldn't be so well receive with a downbeat and labored delivery.
I'd say 99% of the shredding out there these days that I've personally heard is mediocre at best. It's become a speed competition, and I mean it's like come on, you can only play so fast at some point, and only hear so many notes at some point that it becomes trivial.
The bottom line is that the key ingredient that is missing these days is the most important: phrasing.