"But I would also prefer it if the music I love (probably far closer to yours than you realise) was listened to and understood by more than just a handful of aging baby boomers, and thus was given an opportunity to survive and flourish beyond their passing."

This is, I suppose, a worthy sentiment. But I'm not sure that it will be achieved by adulteration or dilution.

On the other hand when I decided, way back when, that I enjoyed listening to traditional songs and would like to try singing them myself, my primary motive was not to ensure their survival. If the survival of the songs is a by-product of my interest, then good, but if they don't survive then I doubt that anything that I could do, say or write will make an iota of difference. The forces invoked in the following quote by Brian Peter's, when responding to the question of why no folk songs were created in the 20th Century, are probably much more relevant:

"Perhaps by pointing out that, on account of the penetration of the mass media into all aspects of the everyday lives of the general populace, no such thing as folksong (in the sense it used to be understood) exists at all, at least in that part of the world sometimes referred to as 'The West'."