OK, I think this thread seems a bit pessimistic but I agree with most of it. Commercial tunes generally only purvey single-mindedly trite ideas about "love" (itself a complex topic that most people seem too stupid to write anything really revealing about) and add some cheesy pop-riff that you don't need any musical aptitude to remember and wish to hell you couldn't!
I think that what guitarists need to do is to cultivate a shift in empthasis away from the whole idea of grand guitar solo vying with mainstream music to using their technique to properly augment their music. A guitar solo doesn't have to be long to be impressive. With the levels of technical knowledge available to players today there are ways of packing blistering licks into impossibly small spaces without losing the drive of the song. What's wrong with players dropping in the occasional explosion of dexterity every now and again and keeping the real solos a bit more tuneful and radio friendly - like for instance David Gilmours solos on the Pink FLoyd album division bell? 1 or 2 seconds of tapping/sweeping says all anyone needs to know about your abillity to play scarily fast. Add these up during the course of a song and you have.. a complete solo slot. Such short-lived displays of virtuosity are also hard for even the most bigoted of DJs to edit out!
Perhaps eventually people will eventually come to like the guitar again and being able to play it properly will become fashionable just like it was in the 80s. Perhaps next time round everyone will realise that shredding isn't an aim in itself but simply a great way of adding rhythmic variation and colour to their playing.