1. Pete Coe ( author, I think, of most of "The Gay Fusilier")
2. Lloyd "Idiom of the people"
3. Rarely, but sometimes. My songs are not (usually) written intentionally to sound traditional. They come out sounding the way they come out - the thought of the moment. I have one work in progress that is particularly intended to sound traditional, telling the story of Long Lankin from the point of view of the defrauded stonemason.
4. No. There is nothing wrong with them, and they may perfectly well be sung in folk circles, but they are not folk songs, at least until (as per the 1954 definition) they have been handed down by, and modified by, oral transmission. Even then they must be rooted in the tradition. It is not a matter of preference, but of definition.
5. A contemporary song is a contemporary song no matter how it is worded (cf. the Gay Fusilier, and to take another example D'Arcy Farrow). Homage is fine, but a homage is not the original.
6. Homage is also distinct from fraud. (cf. the Piltdown Man and other mock fossils).
7. Endlessly, but not right now!