Personally, I don't think modern "greats" such as Vai, Petrucci, Van Halen and their vast army of imitators have a great deal going for them, aside from the fact that they can play scales ridiculously fast. Hendrix, Page, Gilmour, Lee, Blackmore and other legends of yesteryear made far more significant and influential contributions to the vocabulary of the electric guitar (Hendrix's innovative use of effects, Page's fusion of folk and classical traditions with hard rock etc). In my view, I don't think that most of today's leading virtuoso rock guitarists have accomplished anything that quite measures up to the achievements of yesterday's guitarists.

Just my humble opinion - I'm not trying to escalate the war between Hendrix fans and Vai afficionados :) . The shred style in itself is not "worse" than blues or psychedelic rock - it's just shred players like those mentioned previously seem to be more focussed on showing off their speed, than actually composing music.