I agree that a lot of shred stuff is pretty musically-lacking, but there's a lot of emotion in some of this modern instrumental stuff. Take Steve Vai for example, now he can put emotion in his guitar, it isn't just wanking. Have you ever heard Tender Surrender or better yet seen the video? Get it off Morpheus or Kazaa, you'll be in for a real treat. I'm not that familiar with Malmsteen but from what I hear all he does is the same harmonic minor wanking on every song.

If you don't like Satch for his music-making ability, I doubt you'll like Gilbert. He's sort of a faster, less expressive version of Satch.