"Perhaps my expectations were misaligned"
The comment about the power outlets, leading the piece, seems like the clearest example of misalignment. I'm not able to speak for YC, but I think the point of startup school is to help people (hackers) who might not have read every PG essay but have some interest in startups learn how to start startups. Power outlets and other stuff you'd find at "cons" aren't really the point.
I didn't attend this year's startup school, but have attended a few prior, and I can say that the talks, while not completely filled with new information, helped me understand what it's like to be a startup founder. Now, as a current startup founder, I feel like as I've watched the videos this year and talked to one of our employees who attended, I feel empathy with the talks. They don't add to a huge trove of new, previously unearthed knowledge for me, but I don't really think that's the point.
To some extent, I'd liken them to the YC dinners themselves. The point of the YC dinners, in my view, is not so much to give the inside baseball of what it's like to be a silicon valley startup founder... instead sometimes you hear anecdotes that so tightly align with what you're currently going through that you think, "Wow, I'm dealing with that exact thing. And these guys are actually successful now!" It's some sort of helpful external validation which is so often lacking in early stage startups. It helps you keep going, for sure. Startup School talks are like the open source / public version of a YC dinner. The office hours are like the open source / public version of YC office hours.
But back to Startup School itself, I don't think you missed out... I don't even think your critique is invalid, I'd just caution the blanket statement at the end:
>> I would hesitate to recommend it to any other startup founder. If you're considering launching a startup and you need some "inspiration" to push you into going ahead, then by all means attend. For that matter, if you're looking for an audience to practice your "elevator pitch" on, you could certainly do worse. But if you're already working on a startup? Your time is probably better spent staying home and writing code.
Sure, I didn't go this year because I had just gotten back from a week in NYC that was particularly unfun for me, not to mention we're in a totally different place than when I've gone in years past (employees and stuff).
However.
If you feel like you're struggling, and you want to do something that actually could result in an impactful company, there's a whole lot of things worse than going to startup school. For me, it was extremely instructional especially before I had launched my startup. After I had launched, it provided some catharsis / empathy that I really appreciated.
It's definitely not a wasted day. That's for sure.
A great example: Jessica's "Startup Monsters" talk is one I go back and re-read at least every 6 months.
http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong...
Hearing talks like that, and, when you live in a place like Utah, being able to socialize with other people who you could work with forever (we hired someone we met at Startup School) is an extremely great reason to attend. Maybe it wasn't for you, Colin, but I think it could help a lot of people... especially anyone considering launching a startup. And for people who've already launched a startup, if you feel like you're having a hard time, it'll help, I think. It compresses a lot of the essay reading / knowledge gathering into an 8 hour block, combined with meeting extremely great people. For already launched startups, it's a refresher course, with a dollop of community building.
And it's on a saturday... so it's not eating away at your precious work week. Maybe you don't need it, but I think a lot of people will benefit.
(BTW Colin, I've always loved your contributions to HN, and I hope you take this as additional perspective from someone it helped.)