John: Any experienced player would know that, yes; but this thread was initiated by someone who is new to the whole thing, so it does no harm to stress the point that the suggestion you repeated was nonsense, and certainly made by someone who was merely showing off. Nobody has ever suggested any such thing to me, fortunately for them...

To continue to labour another point, I'd be very surprised indeed if the bow in question is a real 'baroque style' thing. Far more likely that it's just a modern bow, warped by abuse. I've seen plenty. I do know a couple of people who habitually use reproduction baroque bows on fiddles with a modern setup (one of them makes the things herself, but usually plays a real baroque fiddle nowadays) and have tried one to see how it felt. Personally, I'd go for the modern style for the modern setup; the designs were changed for good reasons, though it's always interesting to find out about other approaches.