Yes, the process requires time and multiple transmissions and recreations, that's why there are so many versions of Child 200 all over the English-speaking world, and so many of those 'Drowsy Sleeper' / 'Silver Dagger' type songs in North America. A couple of chance mis-hearings of a composed song do not imply 'folk processing' and I don't anyone here has suggested that.

"Yet songwriting skill and a well-crafted pithy lyric are not valourised in folk, or if they are it's at the expense of the hive mentality."

Bullpucky. Or, to be less polite, bullshit. Where do you come up with this stuff?

Your reference to "seamless evolution" was a Strawman. I thought my comment was fairly obvious.