From the WSJ article: Don Dodge, a startup investor and well-known “developer advocate” for Google, said today’s startups are more focused than ever on revenue—as evidenced by the large revenue-growth charts most of them showed off during the presentations to investors. In prior years, founders focused more on the number of people using their service, he said. Refreshingly, he said, there are no longer social-network…
Unfortunately, using the term "boring" even in jest as a compliment is still a bit too close to calling someone's baby ugly.
(I'm certainly guilty of using poorly chosen words at times, and so is everyone else.)
Another issue, is some potential investors most likely want to appear disinterested even when they really want to invest, since it is to their advantage in negotiations. It seems part of the intent behind the "Handshake Deal Protocol" was to put an end to this kind of posturing and dancing. Playing hard to get might be profitable in some sense, but it wastes an enormous amount of time and effort.
The last issue is "interesting" and "fascinating" are choices. You decide to be interested of fascinated by a subject. Other than surprise, it often takes effort and investment to be interested or fascinated. Others may decide differently. I've worked on a ton of fascinating and challenging things that when explained to others could literally bore them to death. Even if the bored people count on the boring thing every single day, the decision to be interested or fascinated by it is their choice to make.
When people find a difference in their interests, the usual result is along the lines of resentment, intimidation, or elitism. A better approach is to acknowledge the difference of opinion on "interesting" and try to find some common ground of mutual interest.
The whole W13 batch is interesting to me. Even if I don't fully grasp the problem they're trying to solve or don't agree that their approach, I always enjoy learning about someone fascinated enough to try building a company around a problem that they consider interesting. If I just don't get it, then there's most likely an important, unknown something I can learn from them. If I do get it, then I my understanding is probably way behind theirs, and I still have something to learn from them.
If you're uninvolved with the push and pull between startups and potential investors and are unaffected by startup outcomes or business competition, then it's easy to ignore the nonsense and enjoy learning about all the new companies on demo days. It's OK to be a spectator and cheer the accomplishments of others.