Well, it's more about the physical sensation of bass – the sparseness of dubstep tracks, which simply sounds boring without the physical sense of being enveloped in that vibration
I know this makes me sound like a white man with dreadlocks but yeah
The same is true btw for really stripped back drum n bass, although with that stuff you do get more of a sense of energy from the drums
I agree that it all sounds quite boring compared to grime and doubtless the rhetoric around it at the time was unbearable but I do think the thing about seeing it 'live' holds weight, not least because I was converted to it by attending a club event (prior to that I thought it was alright, a bit boring, background music – apart from 'Request Line' which is probably one of the more grime-y dubstep tunes of that era, hence Skepta et al embracing it)