Yeah, it is unfortunate. Even stuff that sounds good, such as the latest Saul Williams and Nine Inch Nails records, could be so much more amazing if it had more dynamic range.

I've all but stopped listening to rock music lately and I think this is a large part of the reason.

The problem is that people value convenience over sound quality and so they are listening on laptop speakers, iPod earbuds, to low-bitrate MP3s and so on, and to best optimize the music for these situations, you have to compromise it for everyone else.

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/17777619/the_death_of_high_fidelity/print

In the end, listening to recorded music is just not that interesting a thing to do, at least by itself. Music is fighting an uphill battle competing with other forms of entertainment, and is at constant risk of being ignored or tuned out -- that's why "loud" is emphasized. The bright spot? This is a vicious cycle: Music that's mastered for the lowest common denominator encourages the idea that music is disposable, and makes people less wont to pay attention. As more music producers get this through their heads, I think we can expect the situation to get better. (I would add that it'll get worse before it gets better, but at this point, I think it's virtually impossible for it to get any worse.)