You liked it when you were surprised and thrilled that someone agreed with you in a way that was clearer and more exciting than your own thinking. You stopped liking it when you started wanting something new.

Not to take anything away from the value of his writing. It's good to stay engaged and delighted with the fundamentals. If you get bored with the simple things, you'll neglect them and spend all your thinking about novel, peripheral, trivial things that you aren't bored with yet. Making the important things you've known for ten years sparkle and rock again is a valuable contribution.

My version is much worse. Without the context of Joel's post, it'd bounce right off you, like all the rest of the banal platitudes you hear about your career. Joel's has a narrative with a protagonist. It doesn't simply say "placating bosses is an ineffective career strategy"; rather, it takes you to the end of the story and begs you to come up with underlying point. That's smart; smarter than I could have done.

I had a similar experience. I really enjoyed reading the first collection of Joel's essays, which made me follow his blog. He published some good articles at that time (eg. the law of leaky abstractions) but I changed my mind when the blog evolved into a promotional vehicle for his company. I'm not really interested in the brand of chairs in their office, the fact that they fly interns First Class, or a bug tracker that's nice, but not as unique as he'd like to present it.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing inherently bad about that, but I just lost interest and moved to greener pastures.