As I understand it, 'bokeh' describes the rendering of the out of focus areas of an image.
You use a shallow depth of field to achieve bokeh. The terms are related but to say they are the same is like claiming a camera is the same as a photo. You use a camera to take a photo, but they are not the same thing.
The term bokeh in itself is neutral. There is good bokeh and bad bokeh, and as always when things are judged to be good or bad, the process is inherently subjective. However, there are also some objective criteria that define what is commonly considered to be good bokeh. Like Ken Rockwell or not, his article (to which 2long4you posted a link), gives the best explanation of these criteria I have found so far. The diagrams he uses to demonstrate the different rendering of highlights happen to be round, but the same applies to differently shaped highlights. What matters is the outline of these highlights - emphasized, well defined, or blurry. I think the reason so many photographers have problems wrapping their head around the concept of bokeh is that they are obsessed with sharpness, but in the bokeh (out of focus) areas of your image, you actually want blurry!
But again, despite the effort to make the whole bokeh thing transparent and objective, it is inherently subjective. A Toyata Camry is generally considered to be a well designed car, and judging from the sales figures a lot of people seem to agree. Yet, that doesn't stop you as an individual from considering a Camry to be ugliest car on the planet, while happily driving around in your Hummer. In the same way you might prefer well defined highlights in the out of focus areas of an image, while the rest of the world thinks the area should be as smooth and creamy as possible.
Last but not least, if you want to critically judge the ability of a lens to provide good bokeh, you want to include some bright highlights in the out of focus areas of an image so that you can examine these to see how they show up. On the other hand, if you want to take a shot with good bokeh (especially with a lens that doesn't usually do a good job at this) you want to avoid bright highlights in the out of focus areas of your image. If there are no such highlights, the out of focus area will look smooth and creamy (good bokeh!), regardless of the capabilities of your lens.
In my humble opinion these two images show excellent bokeh - but I made life easy for the lens I used, because there are no bright highlights in the out of focus areas.
Last but not least, out of focus areas in the foreground in general are considered a big no-no, but I fully agree that they can be used very effectively to draw the viewers eye into the frame. However, whenever you post examples of this technique in photography forums, you will find some people who vehemently object.
