We aren't trolling there, are we guest?

It is very hard for me to think of Doc Watson as playing anything "without the difficult bits." The same for Clark Kessinger or about a thousand other participants in one of the world's most arduous traditional art forms. These guys are old-time, though they both play (or played) bluegrass whenever they felt like it.

Earl Scruggs, Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice are great musicians also, but their art form isn't really traditional- in their own minds or in the mind of their audience. Bluegrass claims healthy traditional roots, but values innovation and individual expression. Like old-time, the skills of bluegrass are so arduous that it is usually played to specialty audiences who have cultivated an appreciation of the virtuosity required for the particular pieces.

Of course, "arduous" doesn't mean "good" and you should certainly listen to stuff that is more to your taste.

Incidentally, old recordings of hillbilly music (the recorded root form of old-time, bluegrass, and country music) often include very strong blues elements. Most folks look back only a few years before modern records and radios and see a time when blues was part of the same root form.