Too much....?

In days gone by you had cane reeds and a sheepskin bag. It appears that G1 bands are returning to this set up.
Are there too many manufacturers in todays piping world producing products which overload the market which in turn tends to provide pipers with more time to experiment with finding a "sound" when they could otherwise be practicing the tunes?

No, not in my mind......variety is the spice of life.

There are indeed a lot of tupperware reeds on the market each ( imo ) takin' a bit of the design from each other to try 'n make it work. The reeds I'm using are Ryan's.......excellent.

Cane is the same........good reeds 'n bad reeds, so imo your argument doesnt hold any credence.