Here's something to think about:
Tinnitus. Who has it? Hands up now.
I have it and I tend to think that a lot of the "big dj's" have it. Once you've got it, distortion causes pain, whereas you can listen to clean stuff on the huge systems without as much suffering.
I can deal with minimal and clean production stuff on a huge system all night long without plugs, but I can't listen to a shitty bar band for 5 minutes without cringing in pain. It's all about distortion, I think.
Could it be that all the biggies are going minimal because it literally feels better than the edgy distorted hard techno? I don't think that's the only reason, but it's worth considering.