scrappy to me means anything that is a mixture of fabrics - like when a border is considered "scrappy" because it is made of a variety of fabrics rather than just one. I'm surprised at the "same color and design" comment because I haven't seen that at all. If you join your squares at random they would definately be considered scrappy. You might want to lay them out first though to be sure they don't randomly end up with all dark colors in one section, etc.
Some scrappy examples:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-57606-1.htm
http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-99071-1.htm
http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-99071-1.htm