I generally agree with you that so-called "purists" of the sport will always be unsatisfied, and so they should probably just chill out and go ride however they see fit. Most people I hear talk like that are either old, bitter, and out of the game (like me) or just wannabes that weren't really around, but they bought a new-old stock copy of Look It Up or Long Story Short or something.
But I gotta disagree with your characterization of 2007. Maybe Dumont was the "most famous skier," or the Kang flip was the big thing in the x-games but that's just evidence that most people didn't know what was dope back then. Let's be real: the core of skiing knew what pretzels were, who Wallisch was, what was really going on in freeskiing. In 2006, most people were still shitting themselves over Vanular doing rodeo 4's and 8's onto boxes in LSS. His rodeos in that part were wayyy before their time, mute to japan and tailblunt! Shifties, blunts everywhere. That was some gangster shit. Rainville was double grabbing EVERYTHING, mute to blunt, blunt to blunt. JD Zicat had done all 8 pretzels in an edit the year before (270, sw 270, lip 270, sw lip 270, both ways and pretzel 27 every one). The ATA and SAS guys were doing every sick style trick before it was sick OR a style trick.
Then think about '07. 4bi9 and Wallisch blow up, dude does every single trick in the world at the Realtime park shoots, along with Hornbeck, Delorme, Dadali, Clarke, etc. It was a massacre. N.I.G. and Meatheads made the best underground movies in a while. Pollard, Andy, and Pep pioneered rockered shit and no poles in IDEA, still in my opinion one of the best ski movies ever made.
2007 was dope dude, and it wasn't just the Mammoth, Summit, PCMR, Tahoe scenes. It was everywhere. Instead of wanting to do kang flips or double fronts like the x-games guys, everyone wanted to do pretzels and presses and shifties and ride-away like a boss. It was like a style-renaissance, everyone looked back to guys like Mik D and T-Heed for their next move. Were there some jocky dudes rocking giro g10s and oakley suits? Sure. But those guys are STILL rocking that shit, and that's probably not gonna change.
I'm not saying now is a lame style period - it's not. But 5 years ago, steeze was definitely not lacking.
Fuck it, now I sound like a "purist." But man, this was a fun post to write. Now back to real life.
