"In folk and old time music the skill level is so generally low at the pro level that arguing over meaningless stuff works as a bluff. They can't "do" anything outside of a memorized list of tunes and they compensate for that by turning even the most simple musical question into a big steamy lead of bullshit."

That's both mistaken and unfair. There are plenty of mediocre, rigid, navel-gazing, pick-your-shortcoming, musicians in ANY genre, blues included (been there, heard them). Conversely, there are excellent and innovative (without, gasp, modernizing into something else entirely) musicians in all genres, folk and old-time included. I'm sorry you don't seem to have had any contact with them.