@edcyn: There are actually two schools of Bluegrass: Traditional, and Progressive. There are Bluegrass players who perform exclusively in one of the two schools, and others who do both---for instance one of my favorite living musicians, dobro player Jerry Douglas. He plays traditionally when working in a band providing accompaniment for singers such as Alison Krauss and Iris Dement, and progressive when he leads his band in mostly instrumental music.
I’ve seen & heard Jerry live doing both, and much prefer the Bluegrass music he makes in Traditional style. His solo band is sort of a Bluegrass/Jazz Fusion band! I went and saw he and his band last time they came through Portland, and got bored: too much instrumental soloing, not enough song playing. As I said above, it is song’s I love, not the technical ability of musicians. The skill set required to be an excellent accompanist are very different from those required to be a superior soloist and/or improviser.
As I was saying in an above post, I find music made with virtuoso playing as it’s primary focus---the very essence of much Jazz---often disregards the concept of the song or composition, many of them barely qualifying to be considered a real song (but then the same can be said of Bruce Springsteen’s "songs" ;-). I hear far too much Jazz in which there is no real song at all, just a couple of chords repeated ad nauseam, of use only as the platform for which to solo over (Grateful Dead, anyone? ;-) . Sometimes not even two chords, just one! No employment of modulation, inversion, harmony, counterpoint, or any other musical technique for interesting song development. Sure, the musicians are great on their instrument, but does that alone make for interesting, compelling music? IMO, no.