It might have been less oh-god-not-again if Johnny J had named some names, so as to make it more concrete. He's talking about a specific local development in the Edinburgh area.

In the case of sessions, I don't think the situation is that clear-cut. There are a few "beginners", "slow", or "not too fast" sessions in the Edinburgh area. One, in the Canons Gait, started out using materials on paper from the Adult Learning Project's Scots Music Group, about 15 years ago, supplemented by tunebooks from Nigel Gatherer more recently. It doesn't have any formal connection with either Nigel or ALP/SMOG now, but hasn't found any way of introducing new tunes either - or even different medleyings of the same tunes. The result is an astonishingly ossified repertoire. It's all played quite slickly, and only a few people use sheets, but every week is the same.

The one with the formalized mailing list of tunes, organized by Alistair Kilgour and currently in the White Horse on Mondays, is nominally a slow session. In practice it's more adventurous than the Canon's Gait one, because there's a way of introducing new material. Some people use paper (mostly Nigel Gatherer's books), others don't, but the greater formality goes along with greater variety. You can do something not on the list and not be stared at as if you're an alien. My guess is the Beech Band works that way.