I guess it's all about content for me. If there are a lot of notes then they damn well better be saying something. John Coltrane is a good example of one of the only true masters of playing lots and lots of notes, most of which sound like they have a real point to me (I'm mostly referring to the middle part of his career where the free thing and the form started to mix together). I guess what happens to a lot of musicians is that the things they can play very very fast/ cleanly are things that are ingrained in their muscle memory and therefore aren't necessarily anything that they really thought out, just something they've practiced a lot. Usually when a musician gets to a higher tempo or a smaller subdivision, they have to resort to the things they know rather than really developing their ideas to their full potential. To me this is not really the definition of virtuosity but a lot of listeners will mistake someone who is super technically proficient for a virtuoso. As far as I'm concerned, more often than not, someone playing A LOT really sounds like they are playing nothing to me. Content. That's what it's all about in my mind.
As an afterthought, I think a virtuoso is someone that can make one note more impressive than a thousand and then as soon as you're used to that, they can melt your face with a blistering run, bursting with inspiration.
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"Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God." -Bockonon-
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