Directly
Criminal Justice Act was a direct response to raves, lead to massive protests and redefined the way the police dealt with crowds. The powers handed to the police to shut down raves of thousands of people ended up being used to shut down birthday bbqs with a dozen people. Raves also redefined how criminal networks operated and managed the demand for a new type of product (dance drugs), and it pushed drugs and drug culture into the mainstream. When raves eventually went indoors, into clubs, organised events or became festivals, they took all the baggage of raves with them - shady promoters, massive organised drug dealing, voracious drug consumption etc. Raves pushed a lot of "underground" things into mainstream consciousness.

Not sure if all the long lasting effects of raves were necessarily good things (horrible aggressive over-pólicing of all public gatherings being one of them). But they had a long lasting effect in england, set a lot of the precedents still being followed today. Also, there were strange unexpected effects, such as a decrease in football violence.

Anyways, lots of things changed.

Techno - don't personally think its lost its edge. Its difficult to detach the music in the 90s from the 90s themselves. I enjoyed going out more then, but I was younger, the context was different, everything was newer etc. Still think there are people putting out good tracks, djs playing good sets, live acts rocking it etc. Can't judge a scene based on whatever dross beatport has in its top ten.