Reading this reminded me of a lesson on how not to play Clawhamer Banjo back in the 90's. I had a real cheapo Banjo and needed to borrow a better instrument for a recording deal, which I near ruined by bad technique - attack.

The problem was that I would fast wear away what little nail there was from playing to near the bridge! When I adopted a position near the end of the fingerboard then the wear almost ceased! Second I found that using Nylon or Gut strings helped. Reading about the interest here in Dave Macon makes me wonder why anyone could play his style with steel strings?

Murray here describes his style and reading comments about a Martin in another thread I wonder if he has ever tried some other makes for his style?

I find that my box(Martin DM) plays fine in Fingerstyle but add I play with my hand OFF the table of the Guitar in the same way as the Flamenco or Classical do. I guess it is a question of moving the Picking hand up or down the string in order to vary the attack - thus image of what comes out. Certainly increasing the weight of attack has it's limits and in the end moving away from the bridge might be far far easier and more effective than increasing/decreasing weight of the picking hand, which I find wears down my nails real fast!