Its hard to defend just one side, Because both style and technique is important and essential to learn. IF you really want to be a complete and a versatile guitarist, you must have a knowledge of their components and the theory behind them..coz the mixture of both is needed to produce excellent and catchy guitar sound.

I think it just depend on your personal taste and priorities whether your inclined to be a blues man or a shredder. But you cant ignore the knowledge behind each style. The best way is to learn whats important in each style and incorporate them to what type of music you want.

For example if your a blues man learn shred techniques like the basic sweeps, alternate picking, tapping, etc to polish the techniques that youve already acquired and learned in blues. Same as if your a shredder, you can learn the phrasing, bends and different scale patterns which sound good if you mix it with speed.

In the end it really doesnt matter if its blues or shred, whats important is to produce quality guitar music, make it sound good and improve our guitar playing like the guitar masters did. Page, Hendrix, SRV, Vai, Van Halen, Malmsteen and the rest. ;)