I accept all the above reservations but still, for all the flaws, it is still the best as far as I am concerned.
Unfortunately the "many people who were cast out of the 'folk revival' as a cultural event," I believe are a figment of the WLDs' imagination; far from being driven out, they took over and naused up the revival.
In spite of the constant 'traddie' dig, I have yet to hear of an acceptable alternative definition to the one more-or-less generally accepted by those researching the subject.
As far as the working class roots of the tradition - I know from experience that (certainly up to 20-odd years ago), if I wanted to find classic ballads and traditional songs (outside of the clubs) I had to go to a gypsy site, or to a carpenter in North Norfolk, or to to small farmers or rural labourers in the west of Ireland. The jury is still very much out on the subject of who wrote the traditional repertoire, but it was people like Walter Pardon and Tom Lenihan who put the 'folk' in 'folk song'.
One of the puzzling aspects of the tradition here in West Clare is that, in spite of the fact that a number of (local) songs must have been made during the lifetime of the singers they were recorded from, they still bear the 'anon' label - almost as if authorship doesn't matter and it is what happens to them during the process of being passed on that gives them their significance.
Jim Carroll