It's only as good as the people interpreting data to create useful information. I'm a chemist and mechanical engineer, and to me there are few things more dangerous than a business or finance guy holding a piece of paper that says "big data" on it.

But to answer your question, yes I think it's watered down. From my point of view the whole point of the analytics craze is to distill complicated concepts and statistics into buzzwords that one can sell to upper management and potential investors. That's just my experience- I'm sure there is proficiency in this area that makes real money.