Uncle Holmes,I know what you mean about stale meetings.
The most powerful big book meetings I have ever attended uses this big book step rotation
Big Book Step Study
instead of the first 164.My old home group did the first 164 and there are parts of it that gets stale also
I have found the step rotation keeps getting better and better and focuses only on our recovery.
http://www.bbstepstudy.org/hyannis/format.php
they also use a different preamble,which I love
Big Book Step Study
getting a group to change that dramatically will be tough,but not impossible