I must confess I am impressed by brilliance in any area of life. I admire people who have mastered difficult things, be it a musical instrument, writing a book, riding a MotoGP bike, acting, singing, splitting the atom, programming a DAW, producing an album, flying a fighter jet... I love brilliance, and am glad people strive for it. It's what moves the world forward.
In terms of music, there are countless players who leave me cold - and, I agree, this can sometimes because they have developed technique to such a level that the technique becomes everything (although, to be fair, sometimes it's the opposite). Are such players common? I'm not sure. There was definitely a period of time in the 90's and 00's when a generation of shredders took electric rock guitar to new limits and yet it seemed like every time they released a new album they'd say something like "This time I'm going back to the music. I'm concentrating on melody and songs rather than technique." And every time I fell for those lines and bought the album I'd find they were still concentrating on technique. All those albums got eBayed pretty quickly and what those guys are doing these days I have no idea.
But there are other players who have mastered their instruments and who do understand how to use that technique in support of great songs. These are the players I tend to go for. Sometimes they are electric guitarists, sometimes acoustic, sometime rhythm, sometimes lead. Sometimes they are trumpet players or sax players or piano players. One of them is a banjo player! One of my favourite musicians, Jerry Douglas, is a dobro player - a masterful player who is always perfectly supportive of the song. Sometimes these folks are ear players, sometimes readers. Some know theory, some don't - Django, one of my favourites supposedly never knew what chord or note he was playing - but he's as brilliant as they come, both musically and technically.
Looking back over the favourite guitarist thread and we all chose pickers at the top of their individual technical game!