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I'd have to agree with most of (if not all!) of what qtipbrit92 wrote. The real "defining" characteristic of mecha anime/manga is that it has (usually) giant robots in it that do stuff. Calling it a versatile genre is a bit misleading, because you can say the exact same thing about ninjas or magic girls.
Personally, I've always been a bit of a sucker for sci-fi, so I'll usually give any mecha series a shot. That being said, whether I like it or not has very little do with the presence (or lack thereof) of mecha. I liked Full Metal Panic! because of the characters and how it deftly mixed action/comedy/romance. I liked Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann because it was just so incredibly over-the-top and was a "less talking, more doing" show. The fact that giant robots did stuff is sort of incidental. Sousuke Sagara doesn't have to pilot a giant robot to be a great character and a foil for Kaname, and Simon, Kamina & Co. didn't need the giant robots to be awesome.
Mecha is just a lens through which you can view a story, and it's one of many.
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