Your Groundhog day analogy makes me chuckle but seriously, I think the 'soulless' problem with AB testing only comes when you apply the AB testing "tool" dumbly with no particular goal in mind. For example, applying AB testing to choose which background colour to use I would regard as "soulless", it's just testing opinion with no proper goal/s. However, what if I decide my goal is to increasing the number of replies to questions posted on my Q and A forum site. I use that goal to brainstorm out and then test ideas, then my test/s have a good honest and valuable purpose. I would not then call my AB testing 'soulless'.