Owen,
due to the amount of books, videos, word of mouth and so on, the world of mystery, Bonsai, is becoming firmly grounded in cement. Yes, you may meet a few new to the craft [ I think for this discussion I will leave the Art part to the professionals], but more and more folk will have a much greater awareness of the basics of Bonsai.
As an example, 2 or 3 years ago, some friends from India, went as club to a teaching event in a main city and they had to pay to attend. Sadly, the Japanese miscalculated on the amount of experience the Indians had with bonsai and the report back was, that they felt cheated and treated as ignoramuses.
The problem with the tropical situation, as far as I can see is, unlike the Japanese and Chinese who have had many years to study their trees and evolve the best ways to present their ideas. The tropics is an open field and it will probably take over q hundred years for designs to evolve into, other than Japanese or Chinese designs.
So the knowledge for wiring, pruning and repotting is very needed, and also the subtle points towards design.
BUT evolution has to take place in order for Tropical work to be best appreciated.As examples, both the buttonwood and the pemphis are good examples of Shimpaku envy.
Buttonwood actually matures into a beautifully multidoomed tree and has amazing bark, I cannot however speak for the pemphis as it does not naturally grow on my side.
Still you have to start somewhere, so for example, we use the training techniques [ not fully understood ] of the Japanese Black Pine on the timber pines on our side and the techniques of the Zelkova training on the Fustic.
So for a while our trees will look like northern trees and after a while hopefully, they will evolve.
[No insult is intended to anyone, just trying to a get a few points across as best as I can for Owen to understand.]
Good Afternoon.
Anthony