"Despite the excellent music, I avoid playing them in a way that I never do my crackly old Harry Smith anthology or my Lomax field recordings "

What you are failing to take into consideration is the fact that the Harry Smith anthology WAS state of the art for the time the original recordings were made, and Lomax WAS using state of the art field recording equipement for the time - all of which were beyond the means of an "average" artist of the time from creating in their home.

The recent Woody Guthrie "live" CD was made on a home wire recorder in the late 1940's. The recordings went through an extensive processing to create something that is sonicly pleasing for modern audiences.

If you read the posts carefully, it appears that Spleeny Crank is making an aesthetic judgement about the quality of the music more than the technical aspects.   Most "folkies" will enjoy a Harry Smith compliation of COMMERCIALLY RELEASED recordings even though the quality is not up to contemporary standards. Likewise there are audiences for Big Band recordings of the 1940's, jazz from the 1920's and 30's, and other such historic recordings that are our only link to the original artists.   These are gems and we should treasure these recordings, but if these artists were coming up today, they would be utilizing the best techniques that were available to them.