A marvellously reasoned contribution Frank. No.1 got me thinking though - is it accessible? Folk seems to have a higher proportion of players and singers than other genres. Might not this skill lend itself to increasing musical virtuosity with all the exclusivity that suggests?

I may be going off at a tangent here but not many folk musicians stop at the few chords rock performers are happy to play in perpetuity (while being aware solo virtuosity is a mark of rock it is not a requirement). I wonder if that specialisation excludes it from casual involvement and the primitive 'folkishness' the term implies, and take it into an acoustic branch of technicianship?