Personally I like the BB/PP folk song arrangements, but then I was brought up with them long before I came across their traditional forms. They're concert hall pieces, pure & simple, and their merit as such isn't affected one way or the other by having been sourced from traditional songs.

Incidentally the classically trained Anna Russell, mentioned earlier, had a bit of a dig at them:
"For the singer who is tone-deaf, there is a special type of folk-song. This is the kind which has been 'realised' by a contemporary composer - generally British, [...] the tune is turned upside-down and sung to an accompaniment which is in a different key and tempo because it actually belongs to another song."