"Look at it nowadays. It is not popular, it is not commonly available via the prominent media, it is held up as a laughing stock. Not by some unimportant minority, but in the mainstream."

A picture that's ten years out of date, Santa. Your point about the social aspect of folk clubs was a good one, but you are way off the mark with this. Julie Fowlis, Eliza Carthy on Jools Holland? Kathryn Tickell / Eliza & Norma on Woman's Hour? Etc etc.

"Yes, festivals are more popular than before, though it does seem to be much the same group of people travelling from one to another."

Again, this was the case ten or fifteen years ago. Not so now. Do you get to many?

"I would not claim that the paid guests at my current local club are any better or any worse than they were way back then."

Most likely better, unless your local club is out of touch with who's worth booking.

"In the 60s and early 70s, folk (in the wider sense) music was generally popular."

Funny, I remember it being ridiculed in the 70s. Bob Copper remembered it being ridiculed in the 30s.