not exciting != boring. There are many things that are not exciting, but not boring either, especially depending on your definition. A lot of classical orchestral music most would classify as "not exciting" (until they bring out the big guns, but I'm specifically referring to the "soothing" stuff, ya know?) but it's far from boring, and many find it very inspirational.
A simple painting, normal colours, a standard scene, not exciting in any way yet certainly not boring.
Braid was arguably not exciting at all, there's no real action save what you control, minimal risks, nothing that anyone would generally associate with "excitement", but I've yet to find someone call it boring.
And then again, I've played a lot of games which were full of excitement that felt boring: I was bored playing these exciting games. Mostly war-era shooters that friends would try to get me into: action everywhere, definitely exciting, but so colourless and bland and boring that I couldn't get into them.
You're right, when something is outright boring it's hard to be inspired, but I disagree with your fundamental statement that something needs to be exciting to be inspiring, and the implied statement that anything not exciting is necessarily boring.
edit: and even on the other hand, I'm sure I could come up with at least one example of something that was boring that caused inspiration to happen, and I'm sure you could to if you thought about it hard enough.
