I mean there is no point in having a guitar solo if it's predictable, not very unique... and the Key changes /structure is very obvious... I mean i love hendrix's stuff, but his solos aren't undermining the rest of his song, and they're not blatant... What I'm saying is that alot of the 80s guitar was too much... it was very coarse.. (if anyone's to blame for making tapping embrassing it's those guys) I mean there are great solos now, you just have to pay attention... Daft Punk do some cool stuff, it's not massively complicated or whatever, but it works... Ask Lalimacefollie, he knows about poeple like Ron Thal, Dream Theater etc etc...
To be honest for the last decade or more, decent music for poeple who know about music isn't in the mainstream... Sure there was great stuff back in the 60s, but that simply because there weren't so many fakes trying to make a quick buck...