Much of what you say is true, Pip. However, there are people (myself included, I like to think!) who do make more effort than they have to. Certainly, they're in a minority, but they do exist.

Also, from my point of view, I'm not playing music in a museum. I understand that the relatively bland, uneventful and secure lives that many people lead in the western world in the 21st century may not provide such great stimuli for the development of new songs, but there are still a lot of people out there writing songs (many of them good ones), and many others interpreting older songs/tunes in their own way. I've never seen what I do as static or just a lame reproduction of what's gone before.