I think it's just the regulations that make it boring. If F1 wants to call itself The Epitome of Motorsport with a straight face, they need to open up development and let the engineers get creative. Put general limits on them, like fuel allowance, and then sit back and see what they can do. I find it funny how they try to hype up the tech, even though none of it seems that impressive since boring roadcars already use it. Turbo hybrids? Yawn. I know it takes a lot to get that much power out of them, while controlling fuel use, and being reliable, but those are boring details. Trying to keep costs down while forcing the teams to use expensive tech is just dumb. Let them test, let them be innovative, let them compete.
Personally, I want to see active aero, active suspension, hell I wouldn't even object to traction control systems. Road cars have a lot of this stuff already, it's old established technology. Are they taking a page out of Nascar's book or something?
Now if they really want the "drivers to drive the cars", then ban computers completely. Make the cars completely analog and mechanical. That would be exciting too.