For what it's worth, Conrad continued to post (at least occasionally) on the Ballad-L mailing list until fairly recently, his most significant topic of conversation being, I think, Guy Fawkes.

I would certainly agree with the "colorful, interesting... yet exasperating" description. He had a few areas of special interest, on which he could be extremely enlightening or stubbornly wrong-headed -- and sometimes it was hard to tell which. We may have to give the question a few more years to settle.