It's only boring for the investors that look at the top end on the coincarketcap rankings as they all follow bitcoin. Look at the bottom end of the top 100 and you can make a killing if you pick the right altcoin
I would not see anything as boring at the moment, because what I see honestly is the market at least picking where to go, up or down and until then, we will see this sideways movement.
However, what you said, makes a lot of sense, and when the market eventually recovers, there is always the necessity to at least, try as much as possible to be picking the right coins or tokens with great potentials at the moment. However, speculation is still going to be fully part of this market until we start seeing real life usage and there is actually nothing we can do about that.