It could be said almost about anything associated with any human creation. What is the living genre and what is the noise museum.
Some people look for freshness of avantgarde - the vanguard forces who got some idea first and did something nobody (supposedly) did before. Yet it rarely stops there. Consumer simply get bored and jaded when he is not entertained enough. Ideas and substance itself is not enough, but there needs to be always something "new". And often the new is not enough - if someone doesn't come up with new terms and manifestos.
While I fully agree and admit some of the problems of consumption of "average genre products" - be it punk, metal, power electronics, art in general or whatever.... I don't think such problems are non-existent among those who obsessively look for "new". Their consumption and hobby may not be "power electronics", but constant seek of "new" or "revolutionary" approaches may blind from what lies behind material. Their answer to presented material is gut reaction to surface, not being really interested what the piece ACTUALLY is or what lies behind material.
I would believe, power electronics is no more what it used to be. But there are still so many people who has pushed the sound and substance beyond what was done or what was possible to do in... lets say 1985. It's up to debate can many of these be called "power electronics", yet it's like (yet again) punk or metal - where the new approaches of genres have very little if anything to do with the original form. Some people approach the music as shallow replicas of the past, some manage to add either new sound or substance and some go further, where there is very little, if any real similarities to Whitehouse, Ramleh or such.
I see in all sorts of music, they get re-labeled based on some vague "new thing". You know, just about every year you get some new genre of grime, dubstep, crabcore, or whatever... Single new idea and it gets new genre name. Luckily within PE, there has been possible to re-invent it little by little without need to always call it something else. This nevertheless results that a lot of people wouldn't give flying fuck about what interesting things have happened since "genre died".
Of course, it's not really problem of mine, since I'm happy to admit a lot of things I like to listen to, are not to be labeled among innovative art, but really just the gutter trash that will still inspire few wankers.