To me the interesting part of this discussion, if perhaps the least explored, is not why people find interest in other musical traditions. This I can readily understand: the attraction of the new, the different, the exotic. What I do not understand is why this so often results in a rejection of the home tradition.

I can understand how someone brought up in a tradition should restrict themselves to that tradition (assuming it has a richness and depth to sustain that.) I can understand why someone can grow up in one tradition (or no tradition) and open his mind to music of other - not necessarily all - traditions. But why someone should turn their back on their own tradition to adopt something very different and then cling to that: no, there's a wrongness there.

I don't hold with race memory, but I do believe that much of what forms you comes unconsciously from your background. The music of your area comes from the people of your area, and so do these influences. I believe this is what some of the posters above are describing, when they return to the songs of their background. In-comers, however welcome, willing and talented, are not going to have that same "feel".