What david said -- the beat is the armature upon which interesting things are strung.
The mix Ronnie Pries posted is the perfect counterexample to boring techno. http://www.leverkuhn.com/~rktic/rp-traktorized070104.mp3 Any dance genre gets boring when people just endlessly spin out the same beat with nothing special going on. And strangely, DJs who spin crap like that are hugely popular. My own pet theory -- formulated after seeing Carl Cox, Sven Vath, Jeff Mills, and Richie Hawtin playing sets that were virtually indistinguishable in Paris is that the problem is Euro-kids on drugs. They can listen to the oontz oontz all night long, because they're so messed up on hash and E's that the music is just there to tell them when to jerk. In the US, people like them some drugs too, but the financial rewards aren't there, so most DJs are playing music because they love it. They try to keep it interesting for themselves, and the 3 or 4 sober people who are there to enjoy it. At the same time, some years at DEMF trigger an allergy to the standard issue 4 on the floor beat, especially when echoey venues and ill-tuned sound system turn the kick sound into a series of extended farts. Some times I even think that I don't like techno any more. Until I hear a banging minimal set by a master, like DJ Bone or Buzz Goree, and get religion again.
