> If you add in microphones, pick-ups, etc, it then becomes “electric”.

It's ultimately a matter of taste, and what one's brought up with. (Personally, I view with sadness the generation of street musicians who believe it necessary to use battery-powered amps, but I'm an olde pharte, so whaddo I know about busking in the 21st Century?)

There was a similar war of words, I understand, when microphones made their way into recording studios, then into live-playing contexts. Mikes made being a "crooner" possible; but the crooners were loathed, loudly and often, by the previous generation of singers, who'd had to make themselves heard without electric aid over a full band. Were I to discover that one of the pre-electric singers had invented the term "crooner" as an insult, it would not surprise me.

.... If the venue's got a lively acoustic, drop the mikes; if you're combating a sea of plush velvet curtains, by all means turn up the wick, but not too much. A good roadie is part of the band, but happens to be sitting at the mixing desk halfway down the audience.

Let there be flames.