Yeah, these are very interesting questions and ones that I've been brooding on for a while... I don't know if they're really answerable, but I think asking them and wrestling with them can be helpful.

I've also noticed that we have these ancient streams/traditions of heathenry, but the contemporary "pop" heathenry is definitely a new strain evolving. The Aegishelmer, the Elder Futhark for modern pronunciations of god names ( Othala-Dagaz-Isa-Nauthis for "Odin" for instance) Its really interesting. These are things that Jackson Crawford et al make fun of, but I think there's something moving there.