I've just come along to this thread. There's an awful lot of diverse thought here.

Talk about "flashy" guitar work always reminds me of why I like so little bluegrass. When the musicians really feel the music, it can be so good but I find so many of the players are phenomenally technically competent and have no sense of the soul of the music. The Country Gentlemen or The Greenbrier Boys could really move me. The speed technicians leave me cold.

As far as guitar workshops go, when I find myself in a workshop, I always try to offer options to the guitarists in the audience. I love the sound of banjo but don't play it. So I figured out a way to approximate it in open tuning. Jeff Warner once told me about a tuning which he called "mountain modal". I now use it for almost everything in Myxolydian or Dorian that I accompany.

Another technique that I like is the use of the bass melody note to push a song along. That's the striking of the melody note momentarily after (or before) you've sung that note. Works very nicely in chord transition runs.