Rick-
You misunderstand me. Earl Scruggs clearly plays music. He clearly did not limit himself to any slavish repetition of pattern or style. Which is more than one can say about all too many "Scruggs Pickers" who followed. The same things can be said about "Travis Pickers".

I suspect that Earl knew a good deal about how music was put together, whether it was formal theory or not. I know Merle Travis did.