Now, going back to the opening post. Those who sing from crib sheets to ensure that they sing it in just the same way as it always has been are indeed restricting the folk process. Those who use crib sheets as an aide-memoir are doing no such thing. So, maybe those who insist on re-creating folk songs exactly as they always have been done are indeed contributing to the demise of folk music and putting people off attending folk clubs.

That connects with my problem with floor singers (and for that matter headline acts as well). I don't have a problem with fumbling and mistakes so long as the performer is communicating something new. An exact clone of a performance from 25 years ago - whether by that performer or somebody else - is something I'd run a mile from, and it doesn't matter in the least whether the material is traditional or recently composed. Slickness is death. The sort of perfectionism Jim and the OP are advocating is exactly what keeps me away.