Well Neo, from my own personal experience, the fundamentals need to be mastered first (technique, chord knowledge, songs/repertoire) etc...ONCE, you have that down, and no longer have to think about what you are doing, you can divert most of your mental engergy to the dynamics of expression in your playing.

If there is a soul/feel within your talents, it will manifest itself through your playing and will be self-evident to you and others you choose to share your music with, and you needn't dwell on or analyse it.

If there is no soul, then sure you'll sound like a technician...and there are some very prominent and well known fingerstyle players (I'm not going to name names) who (I.M.H.O.) are wonderful technicians, but have no soul to their playing...and their recorded performances sound to my ears, like listening to an android.

But the bottom line, is that if YOU derive pleasure from what YOU are playing, then that is really all that is important.....and believe me, you know, whether or not you've ''got it''. You don't need a lot of validation from others to reinforce it.