Sean
If you put up an argument you might have a case.
You don't qualify your statements, you don't advance arguments, you don't respond to challenges, you don't answer direct questions - YOU JUST MOUNT SNIDE ATTACKS AND YOU MAKE UNQUALIFIED PRONOUNCEMENTS wrapped in pretentious and irrelevant verbiage.
Sharp's ideas and those of his contemporaries are very much in need of re-examination, but not by meaningless and often impenetrable unqualified statements such as yours.
The day of the 'gentleman' collector is long gone, but what the early researchers left behind is a huge body of material and a basis for undererstanding folksong - you, in contrast, offer nothing other than a bad taste in the mouth.
Jim Carroll