First, I'm learning a lot reading this thread, so thanks for everyone's input.
Second I'd like to weigh in from a professional/expert side of my own craft (it is irrelevant what I do, b/c we're all experts in our chosen craft and understand efficiency/proficiency).
If I teach someone, I teach them a) the best I know and b) the IDEAL PERFECT TECHNIQUE of what I know. I don't give them 99 versions of a single technique for all of life's possibilities. I simply teach them the 'in a vacuum' method first. Once they are proficient with that, I move on to other variables (out of the vacuum) so that they will become efficient with the technique no matter the scenario. I might even show ideal transitions so that they can become proficient in transitioning within said technique.
To remove any vagary, it seems that no matter what someone teaches as an 'ideal', there will come a time where you cannot possibly perform the ideal, but all the practice that you put behind that ideal technique will allow you to be spontaneously efficient at that very moment when it counts.
This, IMO, is the essence of a technique evolving and becoming organic for a practitioner. My teacher taught me his way, I teach my students my way and so on and so forth. None of us were 'wrong' and none of the techniques were 'wrong', but with every new variable and piece of information there will be an evolution to better fit each successive generation of practitioner.