I want more Perry Rhodan And the good old books like those written by Poul Anderson, Asimov, Clarke. And I like Space Opera. It's fun. And sometimes I want only to have fun. I have a project to write a series likes Perry Rhodan, but I need to clone myself to do this :/
In the last 15-20 years more and more movies were released with poor story but breathtaking visual effects. And a lot of people like these. The same happens with books : more "visual" details and less story. I like hard sci-fi so I really appreciate technical details (yes, including the explanation of the "Force" in the new SW movies) but these will not make a story great. The technical details in Asimov's books are outdated now but I still love his novels. They are about people (sometimes robots), not about technology itself. Being a fantasy and sci-fi fan it is surprising even to myself that my favorite movie is The Shawshank Redemption, which is definitely not fantasy or sci-fi but it has a great story (based on a Stephen King novella) and great characters. If you have seen it, you may understand that.
Don't forget E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen series. Rip-roaring space opera with kantern-jawed heroes and dizzying competitive technological arms races, and godlike aliens playing chess with the mortal populations.
I'm going to chip in my two cents on this and say that it's a good thing for previous sources of wonder to evolve into sources of normality. Back then, launching a rocket to the moon was humanity's greatest achievement. Now, it's nothing special. And I think this is a good thing. It means that we, as a species, have evolved past the point where space was still a great and unbeatable beast. Sci-fi nowadays tends towards the future where everything has been solved and we live in a wonderless world, because we are so smart we understand all of it(which leads to the everything being explained bit you mentioned). This is especially common in hard sci-fi, and I really enjoy reading works that properly explain their technology and how things work, because I'm curious and want to know more. You can still feel wonder towards things you understand, though; it's obviously possible - even easy- to build a structure like the Eiffel Tower, but people still wonder then seeing it.
