I think we have to be a bit careful here and not throw the baby out with the bath water.

The Scots and Irish have a lot more competitions than we do. It doesn't seem to have done the music there too much harm. People will (eventually) play how they want to despite prescriptions from competitions.

If we compare sword dancing competition seems to have inspired the rapper dancers to much higher standards and there has been an big influx of younger dancers in their own teams.

In rapper dancing it looks to me as if the older ones are the unusual ones nowadays. This has to have been influenced by competition.

And they can sup beer.

Dave