Please don't bring WAVery into this. I put as much time and energy into trying to argue sense into that guy as anyone here.

what is, after all, merely personal taste must be then be justified, indeed sanctified, with respect of what has become the Holy Law of the 1954 Definition - and woe betide the heretic who dares suggest otherwise

What - or who - are you talking about? As some of us keep saying, "these things are different from those things" is not a value judgment.

the fairy tale that is The Folk Process. I used to believe in it myself until I realised there are other far more plausible ways to account for such things (such as individual creativity and vernacular variation, things which still occur, and will keep on occurring as long as people sing songs

Individual creativity and vernacular variation aren't an alternative explanation to the folk process - they're a central part of it. And yes, they still occur, but clean, unaltered reproduction of songs with their words and tune intact occurs a lot more. As I said above, there's more to the folk process than variation, just as there's more to evolution than the occurrence of mutations.

the music exists, likewise the songs, and what makes it Folk Music is the context in which it occurs

Is Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez folk music? I've heard it at a folk club.

Really, it comes down to one question: is it ever possible to listen to someone performing at a folk club or singaround and then say, "that was good but it's not what I'd call folk music"?