David, you're a trained opera singer!?   I'd've never guessed
it!

And you, of course, know what a compliment that is to your folk singing. 
(You, sir, are far from "striking out" when you sing Irish folk songs,
chanteys, etc.)   Some very important points you made, and some
excellent examples.

(Alice, he's here in Portland, OR.  But he's already got a girlfriend.)

Willie, sometimes you can keep the sung word shorts and use more pauses,
but that doesn't fit all songs.  Sometimes the music specifies that
a word be sung over a several-note interval.  (I'm hearing Joan Baez
singing, "If I go-o-o, if I go, if I go ten thousand miles..." and Ewan
MacColl singing "...I thought the sun rose in your ah-ah-ah-ah-ee-ays...". 
Either of those lines would be messed up if you didn't sustain the vowel
over the entire melody run specified.

"Tsara," I tsotally agree!

Genie