shit in
shit out
that's the old saying
and very true it is to.
there are many things that contribute to a "good" sounding record.
fristly you have to look at it from the dj's point of view:
it needs to be:

loud / bright / punchy / warm bass / clear tops / easy to mix (sonically)/ good definition.

from the producers point of view it needs to be:
tight (very inportant as you can't mix a sloppy track) punchy / well balanced / interesting (sonically and in the arrangement) / groundbreaking ???!!!!???

basically , look at these things .
it's really difficult writing music,. o.k. you don't have to be a genius to use a computer but you still have to have the ideas to make the track and then you have to mix the thing. a lot of us are amateurs (really) and we learnt what we know by trial and error. sometimes things sound great other times they don't. it's just the way it goes when you are a composer/dj/engineer.

my point is
nirvana didn't mix "smells like teen spirit" did they ? the beatles didn"t mix "all you need is love" ?
they were mixed by other guys who specialised in just mixing and engineering tracks ,and here we are thinking that because it's all computer based that we can do it all.
well sorry but it just don't work like that.
and that's the fun of it. some guy making some track in his basement going straight from his mind to yours
o.k. the quality may not be michael jackson but it's directly from him to you and that's what techno is about ( for me)
if you ask me i would say it's the advent of fully computerised studios and a non understanding of analogue mixing that's contributed to dodgy sounding records.

i really hope you get my meaning in this post