I've enjoyed reading all the comments on this thread. I agree that a good guitar accompanyment should pretty much disappear to lift the song, or tune. I like playing in smaller groups of musicians rather than larger sessions. My reason being, I finger pick, and I wind up not being able to hear myself in the larger groups. I thought the late Tony Cuffe was great with his playing in Ossian being very different from what he played as solo artist. I also like to play finger picked versions of fiddle tunes, but find they are not appropriate to play in sessions. So, it's fun to work on back up parts for the fiddlers and pipers.