James Kelly

In my opinion, you missed out... let your preconceived idea of what aikido is get in the way of possibly learning something. How do you know how much aikido training this guy had? Might have been very little, might have been none, but he had training in other arts and so had a different take on even little akido he knew. By just doing your own thing you lost the opportunity to see what he had to say. It's a conversation. He said, ‘hi' and you said, ‘where we come from, we say hello.' I'm not saying it might not have been a complete waste of time, but you lost your chance to find out.
Absolutely not. Aikido already has too much centralization in my opinion. Who's style do we use as a base line? And who are ‘we' in the first place? If the guy wants to say he does Aikido, let him. How exactly does it affect your training?
The last thing we need is a bureaucracy defining what is the proper way to do kote-gaeshi. (It's a kind of funny image though... everyone getting nervous because someone from the Ministry for the Protection of Purity in Technique is scheduled to show up and tell everyone exactly how the techniques should be done).
Yes and no. Yes the organizations are mostly personal and political, but there is not only one aikido from O Sensei. He taught different things at different times in different places and even to different people in the same dojo. O Sensei's aikido was vast and varied and continues on as a living breathing art that changes each time someone new puts on a gi. He was one man with one body, and a set of students with generally a common cultural background. Transplant those movements into different bodies... try to use those movements on people with different cultures of movement... and you get something new. What works for you might not work for me. The only way to tell is to put in the hours and see how it goes.