Dave,
What you are describing could be applied to any form of music from Wagner to the Beatles (copyrighted or not).
The folk process, as I understand it, involves communities in which songs are composed, performed, accepted, adapted, passed on, performed, accepted. adapted, passed on..... ad-infinitum. The songs need to have a significance in and reflect aspects of the communities in order to survive.
It is this process that produced 200-odd plus identifiable versions of Barbara Allen.
Nowadays the songs appear to have no significance away from the point of performance.
Unless you include your local folk club as 'a community' (I don't), this no longer happens generally; the population in general no longer plays any part in the creation and transmission of the songs, other than to act as passive receivers (consumers).
Would love tho find that this is not the case.
Jim Carroll
PS Love the idea of a 'Round' index.