This is a good question.

I found that meetups are kind of like you described not much really happens there and for sure REIAs and their monthly meeting kind of the same people talking about the same thing then bring in ( at least what i have seen with the PDX reia) folks that are presenting on things that worked decades ago.. and want to sell their stuff for a few grand.

For me personally the best networking hands down was SF Bay Area events  San Jose Reia

and LA  FIBI events.

folks in those markets are very real estate centric and generally more experienced and in San Jose so many tech folks that have done really really well.. maybe not in RE but have done great in TECH and have quite a bit of bandwidth for investments..

Then you have the Masterminds that cost 10 to 30k per year to be a member and those have folks in the trades and in the bizz  name brand gurus we all recognize.. While interesting was not my cup of tea as most of them already have their teams in place and so I did not see that as business opps.. Although they will all talk about how they do things which of course is a benefit and why folks go.. but lots of very large egos as well. :)