The fact that the Travellers Vic mentions are dead rather makes the point that they were't hyped

It makes no such point. They were. And some of them hyped themselves very effectively with a combination of arcane mystique and guilt-tripping that had nothing to do with musical quality or distinctiveness.

Though neither Henderson nor MacColl/Seeger would have gone to the loony extreme you're doing and imply that we wouldn't know any of their songs without them.