I agree. And in line with my quoting Dan above... the point in Ueshiba's career when he started to change, right up until the end is probably the most interesting - for that very reason.
However, Rob L's question was about using waza to train aiki.... and since the nature of aiki is formless in execution, how then does one use waza - which is essentially a static snapshot - to train towards formlessness?
That is the crux of the question... how does one "capture the essence of aiki" thru static waza? If you can do static (or even dynamic) exercises that directly train "aiki"... what's the difference between that and waza?