Brian,
Yes, there is a need for some sugar sometimes, but I know performers (and I'm sure you do too) who have no faith in an audience -- or their own delivery of a ballad -- and so they resort to 'prettier' or more anodyne material.
A test for the enduring power of ballads to speak to people is to present a carefully chosen example to school pupils (having set it in some kind of context), and then stand back as they explore all the ins and outs of the narrative, possible motivations of the characters and their own 21st century responses to moral questions.
What think you?