When I was in Edinburgh recently I found the trad music in Sandy Bell's and the other folky pubs near it to be extremely variable.

The point is that they have a LOT of music in those pubs. They have weekday afternoon sessions - there's a real demand for live music - it's not just evenings and weekends. Kind of stands to reason that some of it will be hit and miss. Personally I'll take the rough with the smooth. I didn't hear anything terrible though! And heard some pretty impressive musicians too...

And actually it was kind of pleasantly reassuring for a born-and-bred London fiddler like myself to be able to hold my own playing Scottish tunes with Scots fiddlers.