Last Thursday, I went to the Book Club in Shoreditch to talk about the Not the Booker prize, at an event organised as part of Internet Week Europe by publisher Melville House. My role was to chair a panel consisting of Ready Steady Book's Mark Thwaite alongside the NTB's first, second and third-placed authors (Michael Stewart, Lars Iyer and Julian Gough), and try to guide a discussion about the prize and "literary merit on blogs and in online discussion."

Before I got there, I wondered if I'd made a mistake in failing to request that I conducted my part of the proceedings from behind a plexi-glass screen. But my fears were unfounded. There was little of the – how to put it? – excitement that makes the Not the Booker so compelling. Happily though, there was still plenty of personality. Those who followed the prize all the way through this year may be disappointed to learn that Julian Gough was fully clothed, but not that he was charming. Lars Iyer pronounced on Blanchot with the same authority and wit as W does in Spurious. Michael Stewart was gracious in victory (even though he still hadn't received his Guardian mug). Mark Thwaite was an eloquent ambassador of the aforementioned literary merit on blogs.

Our talk was good-natured and we seemed to agree about most things. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we all declared that the Not the Booker was a very interesting experiment and an effective way of laying open the machinations that go into any literary prize-giving. It turned out to be such a love-in that one member of the audience berated us for being "self-satisfied" and "complacent". After that, the event became far truer to the spirit of the prize. There was passionate debate, there were complaints about "the establishment", and there were baffling asides about Foucault. But out of all that, the most consistently interesting strand was a discussion of literary reviews.

There've been many articles and surveys recently about the genetic make-up of reviewers. The general question has been: are there too many white males? The general answer has been: yes. But a different complaint was aired at the Book Club last week. Several people in the audience – and a few on the panel – seemed more concerned that broadsheet book reviews simply aren't good enough. Words such as bland, boring and formulaic were bandied about. Mark Thwaite landed a hard punch when he suggested that the conclusion of nearly all broadsheet and mainstream reviews was the same: that the book they are examining is "quite good". Reviewers, the suggestion was, are so careful to say things that are reasonable and fair that they end up saying nothing at all.

Thwaite held up blogs and the internet as a potential alternative model, saying that while they weren't necessarily delivering yet on a significant scale, there was more room for creativity and controversy online. He cited Stephen Mitchelmore's excellent This Space as an example of how much more interesting independent writing can be than "the broadsheets". Mitchelmore was actually in the audience, and looked mortified when Thwaite declared him to be a paragon of online excellence, but recovered enough to make a few characteristically interesting points. He much preferred writing for himself, he said, than for money – and the external editor that goes with it. This Space has no constraints of room, no real need to remain current (as I'm writing this, the lead article is a lovely piece discussing Ladybird books and Kierkegaard), and it's free of any house style or expectations. He can write about what he likes when he likes, and the results are generally splendid.

But that isn't necessarily an argument against broadsheet reviews – which serve a different purpose and cater to a different audience. More damning was the repeated assertion that broadsheet reviews are boring. One idea put forward was that because most reviews are no longer anonymous, writers don't feel free to let rip. Again I'm not entirely sure. Would critics be more honest if they hid their names? A prominent byline certainly hasn't held back the awesome Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times. Plus, when real names are used, readers can always decide for themselves if there's a conflict of interest.

But I'm beginning to digress. The important point is that there was a clear sense of dissatisfaction in the room with reviews as they are – a sense for which I suspect plenty inside the bubble have little feeling. I know I was quite surprised. Personally, I usually enjoy reading the Guardian's Review – and if many of the reviews ultimately conclude that a book is just "quite good", that's probably more of a reflection of publishing than the critics. It's only so often that a masterpiece comes along – but most books that catch the attention of literary editors tend to be OK.

But – of course – as a contributor to the Guardian, I'm hopelessly biased. So what do you think? Would it be better if they deliberately picked out bad books in order to make their papers more interesting? Would anonymity make reviewers feel more able to tell the truth if someone as important and talented as Ian McEwan writes a stinker? Are broadsheet reviewers actually as dull as most people at the Not the Booker event seemed to think? Do they need to change? And if so, how?