Exactly, technical proficiency and style are not mutually exclusive.  It takes skill in the first place to be able to express oneself in a way that stands out among many talented musicians.

In the 90's Mike Varney launched a project to promote many of these, Jason Becker, George Lynch, Marty Friedman, Greg Howe, Michael Lee Firkins, Vinnie Moore, Richie Kotzen, Tony MacAlpine and many more. In the beginning many of these were rather soulless hair-metal guitar wizards with impressive chops but little personality and feeling and a rather limited musical scope, but it's also true that with time many of them developed into very good players and many ventured into the more demanding scene of fusion, which expanded their musical abilities far beyond speed-of-light chops.

At any rate, feeling and originality is the most important for me, but all the better if it's coupled with good technical skills.

Absolutely. You can not play a great solo, no matter how much you practice, if you don't have technique first, and practice will also enhance your technique. That being said, Personal style is necessary as long as your talent is there, to set you apart from others, otherwise, you'll just play and sound good (maybe), but won't stamp your name in music history.

John McLaughlin was, for me, far more impressive. If you stick on "Meeting of the spirits" then you may have an indication of what I'm talking about.

Then again, you might not. ;-) Y'see, the problem is that a lot of people can't actually hear music properly. A staggeringly large number of people can't hold a tune or even clap in time. They hear something which they're told is amazing by some (invariably) clueless music journalist, and it becomes de rigeur to assume that Guitarist X is the best thing since sliced bread. All guitarists - all musicians - work on a huge mental back catalogue of influences - for example, listen to Red House by Jimi Hendrix, and you'll hear Buddy Guy, B B King, Muddy Waters etc. The approach in playing it, for the time, was revolutionary, so, for an example, the technique and execution is innovative. But there ain't much new there in terms of content. 

There are only 12 notes to an octave. A lot of guitar solos are in pentatonic major and minor keys, where you're really only using five notes. So there are only so many combinations, and nearly everything has been done before. A lot of respondees to this thread will claim innovation is important..... it's exceedingly rare. When fingertapping (hate it) became popular in the 80's, every single wannabe famous guitarist started fingertapping out execrable dreck. The journos went mad. Ditto the public. However, fingertapping wasn't new, it'd been around for 20 years before that. It was just the latest manufactured craze. To show how brilliant guitarist were. Why ? To sell records. 

Ditto "heavy metal guitarists", which I hate with a passion. Any fool can play fast. You just move your fingers faster. But. What're you playing there, hairy boy ? Oh, it's just some junk arpeggio, you don't actually know how to play, do you ? But do carry on, spandex trousers are indeed a substitute for being able to play.

So, if you're looking for a black and white answer here, it probably doesn't exist. From a perspective of innovation, it's very difficult - to the point of near impossibility - to come up with something *new*. It's nearly all been done before. If you want to really do something unusual, ie free jazz, your listening market will decline to nothing as everyone finds less headache inducing music. If you think it's all about a technical approach, whoops, you may be able to play the most complicated chords and arpeggios known to man, the only people who'll appreciate them are a few sad old musos out there - everyone else just hears noise. 

I think we'd all agree (I hope we do) that the conveyance of emotion is massively important, but if you don't have the basic skills to do so, whoopsy there, too.

These "classical musicians" did boogie a lot on this tour! 

Not all heavy metal guitarists are about speed and not even all the well known ones.  Marty Friedman's solo on Tornado of Souls is very playful and has loads of flavour.  It is still played pretty fast but that's because the music is so driving and intense.  He has played some other great solos on the Megadeth albums that he was a part of.  And what about Adrian Smith's solo on Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg?  It may be a bit cliched but it's certainly not devoid of emotion.  

 

Generally, and I say this ... in general ... I would suggest that the technical side of things becomes more visible as many musicians get older. However, they also get lazier more often than not, and excuse their work as better, when in essence it is/becomes simple.

 

All in all, this is an "outside looking in" argument, and it really fails the test of "intuition" and "individuality", specially when that individuality is laced with culture from the particular area the person is from!

I second that. Prog, along with quality jazz and classical, is apex music. Lack of technical skills would limit the musician's ability to express complex thoughts. 

Indeed, and further this is the kind of viewpoint that would resonate more with punk.  So it's very strange that a lot of prog rock listeners seem to take this position. It would only seem to suggest they underestimate the importance of technical skills, as if these were something you could readily buy off the shelf in a supermarket.

That makes sense, but more than once I witnessed free jams where a complete beginner would choose an instrument, and find a way to play it. Provided he was not too busy and the other musicians could actually listen and play, it felt more than once like doors were opening to something new + very exciting...