Refusing to accept passing off non-traditional as traditional is completely justified. I'm not defending that - that's clearly bogus. And I'd agree with you that good musicians love the music for its own sake.

I disagree on originality though. I assume you mean "challenging" as in "challenging preconceptions"? In that sense, a challenging musician is the one who can put their own spin and personality on the music, and make you hear it differently from how you expected to hear it (irrespective of whether that take on it is commercially viable or not). If all a musician is doing is repeating something that they've heard, note for note and phrasing for phrasing, and something that the audience also knows the same way, what are they doing that's challenging? So the challenging part is always the interpretation of ideas through the music. If there's no interpretation, it simply can't be challenging.

Stifle debate? Nope. You have the right to your opinions, as I have to mine, as does everyone else. (Opinions and arseholes, and all that.) As judged by attendance at gigs and purchase of CDs, you're probably in the minority though. And that doesn't give you the right to blithely dismiss the majority as "uncritical, easily satisfied, 'easy listening' fans" because they don't like what you like. There's plenty who'd put Dave Swarbrick or Altan in the "easy listening" box because it's pleasant music to listen to in the background - but they'd be wrong as all hell to treat it that way.

Graham.