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Revolts were the exception rather than the rule under the Roman Empire: I admit, I take my knowledge of Boudicca's War largely from Tacitus, since while I've read some Cassius Dio, it wasn't that bit. Basically, all we have are two accounts, plus all of the archaeological evidence.

The Iceni weren't Roman subjects at the time of the incident. They were allies and the aggressive behavior toward a "friendly" tribe probably really torqued off all off the other tribes outlying Roman areas. Basically, the Romans were showing they couldn't be trusted to abide by treaties and might treat allies as enemies without warning. It was a shock because it was a serious break with Roman policy. Romans could be right bastards during the conquest phase, but they were really careful about things like contracts up until then. This is why the Romans were so much better at swallowing and keeping territory than the Greek City States were. Let me explain.

Way back when Rome was a settlement built on a marsh, there were these things called "Latin Rights." This was a simple agreement between a handful of Latin speaking city states in central Italy to honor and enforce contracts between Latin League members. This meant that if I had a business in Roman territory that traded with a neighbor and I delivered the goods and they cheated me on payment, I could sue to get damages and my claim would be respected in both jurisdictions. This was revolutionary, since in most places in the Western world at the time you could only enforce contracts if you were a citizen of wherever the dispute occurred. There were also come other contract related benefits, like legal marriage between citizen class people of Latin League members, which was also revolutionary if you know anything about Ancient Greek Law. As you can guess from the title, the Latin League was made up of ethnically similar Latin speaking city states.

The Romans got a really clever idea. When they fought a neighboring city state, instead of exacting a huge annual monetary tribute, they exacted a tribute in military men and a small tax to maintain the army. Then they extended Latin Rights to the conquered State and allowed local governmental autonomy, as long as the basic terms were kept. This meant that every time the Romans conquered something, they expanded the army and got a new trading partner that was grateful and relatively prosperous, instead of a resentful cash strapped ruin waiting to rebel. It was incredibly revolutionary, since they did this with non-Latin neighbors.

Pretty soon, Rome had the biggest army in Italy at low cost to itself and a trade empire big enough to rival Carthage. Neighboring "conquered" areas saw how incredibly good the Roman standard living was, and ended up rebelling, not to escape Rome's grip, but to demand full citizen rights. They wanted to be full members of the Republic. Rome eventually allowed them to join as full Roman citizens and the conquered areas got to share in the growing wealth of the Republic. As they conquered non-Latin speaking areas, they kept dangling Latin Rights, aqueducts, indoor plumbing, quality sewer systems, Roman style forums, Coliseums, baths, roads, theaters, and the high standard of living these implied over the new areas. They left local administrations in place, while immediately providing material improvements to the area. They encouraged retired soldiers to marry local women and settle in the new areas, blending populations and where possible, religions (This is why Judea was such a problem. Jews didn't blend religiously and tended not to intermarry). Soon the new areas were begging for citizenship so they could get all the rights and protections that go with that. Roman culture was really tasty.