Well yes, I agree with that conclusion SO'P. The tradition as a word and an idea has become talismanic, a fundamental minimum of belonging, much as a belief in a deity is the basic building block of western religion (as we're using spiritual analogies). The stuff we call traditional, the material of collectors, is likely to be at the very posh end of the common sound which spanned every person who ever wanted to express his condition in front of an ale-house fireplace.

To my ears a good deal of the tradition is formulaic and leads to the suspicion collectors did indeed pick songs that fitted their idea of what old music was. I'm not convinced of Pip's rote performances as anything more than a perpetuation of the modern phenomenon of Folk Revival, any more than I am of the Nicean Creed's ability to transport someone who was thinking about what they were going to have for their tea.
There has to be a yearning, and that longing has to be more than attending a singaound.