Okay Michael.
I'll try a fairly serious answer before the fight starts, although you seem to start threads with that as the intention.

Morris has been around a long time. At certain times there is documentation which gives some form of snapshot. In essence these contemporary snapshots of information prove that it was known to the people who wrote the documents. We know from some of these that some form of Morris was known in the Court of Henry VIII and that the actor William Kemp danced from London to Norwich (a 9 Day Wonder which actually took four weeks). The text of his pamphlet describing the event can be found at Project Gutenberg BLICKY!.
By the Victorian era it had dropped out of the interest of "writing folks" until seen by Cecil Sharpe.
Most of what we know (or think we know) has been researched or invented in the time between that day and now. What most people do not know, and mostly are not bothered about knowing is which bits are total fabrication. In general a good story beats authenticated facts.
Everyone has their own personal agenda, and academics are no exception. I think part of the academic mindset is an inbuilt belief that what you are studying MUST BE IMPORTANT, because if you didn't think so, you would be wasting your talents. I sometimes suspect that "folklorists" have on occasion been guilty of trying - whether deliberately or without realising - to add "value" to what they report.
In my mind, the key question is "Why were those dancers doing" when observed by Sharpe. Were they trying to uphold a sacred tradition, or were they doing something which they knew allowed them to rattle a collecting box at the doors of the rich people? If you take the latter view, the justification for dancing is to entertain for money.

Most morris teams do not have any direct link to an unbroken "tradition", even in some of the villages where Sharpe made his notes, they were of description given by men too old to dance. The majority of dance teams are either a "revival" of things documented in their locality, "imported" from some other location or "invented". very few can honestly claim a "real" tradition in what they do.
That said, it takes a lot of time, effort and practice to reach a standard of performance that is watchable by an audience. Morris dancers work hard to get there and nobody does it as a bit of "tongue in cheek fun poking". If you don't at least attempt to do it right, you ain't going to do it at all. It is, after all, a performance.
What makes a good performance? Too precise can be boring to watch, too sloppy is an insult to the audience. The most entertaining are often the dance team who perform well enough to be relaxed and smiling. Having fun in a way the audience can see and enjoy.

As for the question of the Pimms Advert. If a film company are willing to pay sensible (or silly) money, it will pay bills such as hire of a hall to practice in, subsidise the cost of attending an expensive gathering or maybe just beer on the day. After all, if it isn't fun, people would not join in the first place.

Quack!
Geoff the Duck.