this can be a problem, people as a whole aren`t too open for change, until that "diference" is popular enough to be acceptable.
Which is a double edged sword.
However, you can never predict where a music will go, and hopefully should never be able too.
I don`t think the comparisons to early minimal techno productions and the stuff made now stand up.
What is called minimal now is closer to house really in groove and tempo, and has a certain style, rather than just containing less sounds, and therefore being minimal.
Even then, when you talk about predicting where techno is going, really what you are talking about, is what the majority of techno fans will consider cool to listen/dance too.
Techno is already going in a hundred different directions, but unfortunately somewhere in the chain, the promoters, DJ`s, or party goers, really seem to want monochromatic sounds at their events.
I hope for the future that the fans will want to embrace the backlash against stagnation that has caused lots of producers to fly off in all sorts of directions, and that we will see events with a good cross section of techno sounds.
Really the sound in you average techno club hasn`t change that much in the last 4-6 years. New records, same sound.
So where techno goes is not really a question for me, I hope it goes everywhere, I just wish/hope, that the fans open up to more diversity.