100% correct - most guys go for the 'magic pill' approach to get as fast as possible as quickly as possible. Taking this route usually results in sub-standard playing that becomes very difficult to improve on (they plateau with no skills other than speed).

Good guitarists are separated from the vast majority by one thing - style. Style itself as far as lead gutiar is concerned is the process of being able to inject feeling into playing. Without style a guitarist sounds boring, lifeless and robotic.

The key ingredients in creating a unique style are mastery and combination of the following techniques:
- Vibrato (ultra important - wide, narrow, fast, slow etc)
- Sliding to and from notes (makes parts more interesting and adds a stylish edge)
- Pinched harmonics (not just 'squeels' but varying degrees of PH's can add an interesting flavour to otherwise ordinary passages)
- Bending (rather than simply playing a colection of notes, bending from note to note completely changes the feel of a passage)

The key to mastering the above being able to play a piece slowly. Most fast solos sound bornig when slowed down - the whole point is that the music should be interesting at any pace.

I developed my own playing style through playing complex pieces at half speed and trying to add as much flair and frill as possible to compensate for the reduced speed. Now I play everything a lot slower and use shred runs as a tool to enhance solo rather than basing it entirely on speed. This makes the shred sound faster and the solo sound more interesting.

Good solos have lots of different pattern runs, stand alone melodies, feeling injected into every note via playing style AND a beginning middle and end.

Hope that helps someone out there!