I'm sure this is no help. It's obvious you're in a slump. All I can say is: "join the crowd." I'd be willing to bet that everybody on LuLa who's done serious photography for more than a few months has had the same kind of slump you're in at the moment. The bright side of a slump is that sometimes you come out the other side with a new approach to things. Here's some advice: don't plan. Carry a camera and shoot when something hits you in the heart -- not in the head.
Rob,
I understand your rationale for seldom directly critiquing other peoples work, but let me offer a counter. I try to critique and respond with my personal reactions, on the grounds that a photographer is (I assume) trying to communicate something or other. Therefore, I repeat back both what I "heard" and some detail about why I think I "heard" that.
My view of myself in this process is not that of an art critic (although I might occasionally sound like one) but as a laboratory rat. My job here is to find the cheese, or die, or eat the pellet, according to the photographs presented to me, so that the photographer can know how rats respond to their work. I am but a single rat, and an idiosyncratic one at that, but a bunch of rats working together can perhaps provide some truly helpful data.
If you have a sewer that needs filling, I would be happy to fill it for you ;)