Tips for introducing a speaker
The long and boring introductions that you've noticed are probably due to people simply reading off the "speaker biography" paragraph that is typically included with a talk announcement.  That, in turn, is usually prepared with little thought by the speaker, often by grabbing a recent bio blurb from a proposal or their website.  Thus: boring list of dates and awards.

My personal preference is to ask the speaker how they would like to be introduced and to keep things quite short: any good speaker will begin their talk with a high-level perspective on their technical vision and work in any case.