I think we've managed to avoid a "battleground" with this one. What we have is a number of people expressing different opinions. We can choose to try to understand what they're saying, or we can get upset about it and try to change their minds by arguing. The latter is futile, and it appears most people have realized that.

Everyone seems to agree that change is necessary (or at least unavoidable) - the only disagreement is how the changes occur.

A) On one hand, some people think the people who do the changes should be careful and tentative, because really horrible changes may be accepted and continued.

B) Others think that people should try anything and everything they want, because if the changes are really bad, they won't be accepted by most people and won't continue.

The folks who believe A) are simply carrying out what the folks who believe in B) think happens.

It's traditional for the music to change, and it's traditional for people who don't like the changes to complain about them. What isn't traditional is for people to maintain the "snapshots" and keep referring back to them - this has been something that's happened within the scholarly community and not the "folk" community, I believe. People who study cultures don't normally try to influence their development. Folk music seems to be an exception. Argument and enlightenment welcomed.