My take on this is that we have this dichotomy between the Revival and the Tradition because the English Revival got its initial impetus from the American revival, and when it started to take up English material it continued with the American performance style it had originally adopted. The guitar was the iconic instrument of English folk music from the beginning of the revival, despite having virtually no place in the original tradition. Revival singers got much of their material from written sources, and even where they went to source singers (or recordings of them) in most cases they then performed the material in a more modern style.

The folk revival has its own quite distinct aesthetic and style, which is recognisably different from that of the original tradition. This was not merely an evolution of an old style under the influence of modern music, it was the creation, virtually from scratch, of a particular performance style which drew its material from the tradition but little else.