This is strictly my point of view based on observation. Blues popularity probably reached a peak in the 50s and early 60s with Chess Records and the presence on the scene of the Chicago Blues Greats. This popularity was primarily focussed in black listeners. It didn't reach a large white demographic until it crossed over in the mid to late 60s (yes, I know you were into Muddy, Lightnin, Son House, etc way before that...I'm talking about mass popularity). Taking this into consideration, Blues music is the music of people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. Do we really expect that people in their teens and twenties are going to follow our taste in music?
Among blacks, I believe the Blues is Grandpa's music. Hip Hop is what they're listening to. Do you need guitar heroes in Hip Hop? Nope. You have seen Hip Hop acts: one guy playing sample background riffs on a machine, one guy scratching a record, one guy posing and expounding on something, one guy singing during pauses in the expounding, 2 or 3 other guys saying "yeah...come on, come on...". Maybe a drummer. What in this would lead somebody to the blues?
And sorry, Little Hawk, I don't buy the corporate packaging sold to the ignorant masses bullshit. This is dance music, whether you or I like it or not, and that's what young people, especially young black people, want to listen to. It's really no tragedy. Blues won't die, because it has primal power, but it will have to be rediscovered by future generations who will uncover this primal power and mine it like some forgotten mother lode.
The trend toward Hip Hop does bode ill for black instrumental music, and when I hear someone say there's no real difference in black popular music acts today compared to the 70s, for example...well, what color is the sky on your planet?