The oldest of our continuously running folk festivals (in Oz) started as a workshop to teach 200 people from the city the tunes and moves of a series of dances that had been discovered in NE Victoria. The success of that and subsequent workshops led to the starting of the National Folk Festivals here. The fact that many of the people who started the Nationals were also involved in getting the Nariel workshops up meant that many of the events at the early Nationals were workshops and/or seminars. Floorsinging (and dancing) was my path into my "career" (if that's what it has been) as a performer.
Such workshops are frequent at current Nationals although there was a transition to more and more concert-oriented events, still called workshops, after the Darwin Folkies regrouped following their evacuation from Darwin in 1974.
I may have more confidence than some. perhaps, or it might be that my uni experiences allowed me to put workshopping into a context that suited me but my observations of others seems to suggest that standardisation hasn't eventuated, but that knowledge and skills have gone from strength to strength. And the enormous breadth of styles and content of workshops at Nationals these days is unlikely to straiten anyone's approach, collectively or individually.
But my experience is such matters is distinctively Australian.