Actually, in a way I think a lot of you are trying to compare the Beatles to the style of Rock that is present today, which is a misnomer.
Musically speaking-- especially the Seargent Pepper album-- the Beatles didn't play Rock so much as we know it as much as a variety of styles. Look at 'When I'm 64' especially. It isn't a rock and roll piece, but neither is it truly Jazz, either. (When was the last time you heard the clarinet and bass clarinet in a rock piece?)
My second cousin in Belgium plays in a Dixieland band; '64' was one of the pieces they played.
Ultimately, the reason that the Beatles defined Rock and Roll was because subsequent artists took what they were influenced by the Beatles into their own music. A good example, IMO, would be Elton John and Billy Joel. Both, largely, are rock artists, but they have pieces that don't fit the Rock formula. Billy Joel's 'Scenes from an Italian Restaurant' is a great example. That piece fits both the jazz and rock idioms.
Jazz and Rock are both decended from the Blues, so to try to seperate the Beatles era Rock into its own seperate category doesn't make much sense, nor does trying to lump them into modern Rock.
In my opionion, the Beatles are a great group, musically speaking, for taking risks that seem to run against the grain (scoring for instruments that don't 'belong' in rock, having orchestral accompanyment), and for giving their successors the influence they needed to evolve rock to what it is now.