Interesting and valid points, Phil Edwards.
By "guitarist" I guess I could easily have meant "instrumentalist" - of course any versatile musician-singer has a natural advantage over a vox-solo practitioner by mere definiton.

But your last sentence in brackets isn't entirely justified, and it rather implies you may have misconstrued my own comments.These were made from observations on singers - both male and female incidentally - rather than as "such a singer" who was "moaning on that Internet"..

But now I come to think of it, some of the most rewarding folk club nights I've attended over the years have been when the booked guest, a soloist, has sung entirely unaccompanied - and while I accept that may be partly a matter of personal taste that's not the whole story by any means. In the end all I'm saying, I guess, is that unaccompanied singing is equally valid a form of entertainment as accompanied singing, and like any entertainment it demands skill and judgement on the part of the performer to keep an audience's attention. The vocal equivalent of the "wall of sound", however proficient, is certainly impressive, but can tire a listener sooner than a varied set from a solo singer with plenty of light and shade and contrast. And that's not a criticism of any of the singing groups on the folk scene, just an observation (again). Peace!