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Okay, let's try another angle.
Does anyone else find Justin's attitude a little presumptuous? The whole idea of putting one's personal stamp on a great masterwork seems arrogant to me.
The gothic cathedral analogy doesn't wash, either. Eventually, gothic cathedrals were indeed finished, and their progression of styles has less to do with one being an improvement over another than the sheer enormity of the project, requiring generations to complete. During the 18th Century the interior of Notre Dame de Paris was faced in marble and decorated in high baroque. They could have left it that way, but at some point they decided to tear it all out, realising that the original edifice was perfect just as it was. So it is with Messiah. The original is just fine, and not even Mozart's re-orchestration could escape being a bizarre charicature.
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