Why does House work?

How come House is such a good show?

It's about very boring yet arrogant people solving mysteries none of us layman could possibly hope to solve. And at the end the "bad guy" isn't punished or even psychoanalyzed, because the "bad guy" is a f*cking disease. No motive at all!

Even the doctors don't have motives for what they do--money doesn't seem to come into it, and nor does empathy.

So the plots are incomprehensible, the characters are unappealing cardboard, and the clothes suck. What's left?

Dialogue? Not anything special. Pretty workmanlike, really. Can you think of any memorable lines? I can't. I can think of the *way* Hugh Laurie says certain things, but not what he actually says.

Cinematography/special effects? They've pretty much dumped the "body chemical POV" so it couldn't be that. And as said before--the clothes suck.

Exoticism? Maybe the first fifty times we saw the hospital, but all these seasons later? No way.

Sex/drugs/rock-and-roll? From the show in which a NUN almost died from her IUD?! Uh-uh.

So what is it? Is it truly:

good/reliable structure + 1 charismatic lead = HIT?

None of this is a take-down of the show--I eat that sh*t up. I've run out of Houses to Hulu for God's sake. But it's a case of the "bumblebee flies anyway"--everyone SHOULD find House hideously boring or incomprehensible. I honestly want to know:

How can this show work?