Future of Lap Steel

 50+ years Steel/Slide, Melobar has seen a lot of change in the music world. When I started in the end of the 70's early 80's I sat in the office with Irby Mandrell (Barbaras Father and Manager) and listened to him lecture me for an hour that Steel guitar was dead and gone. I chuckle that Steel was the only thing that survived in Country Music. 
David Lindley's epic Running on Empty slide work woke up a few players in the 80s but Melobar was one of the few companies making lap steels as the 90's started. Nashville NAMM in that day there were only two booths offering Lap Steels. The internet Steel Guitar Forum brought out some great innovative players for a few years but then like all forums, a group that wanted only Hawaiian Lap Steel in the world ran off anyone trying to talk about taking Lap Steel into Rock or Blues. We had a lot of hope in a dozen great players; but now I see it starting to fizzle out like the 80's again.
Music is expression, and bending a note IS how we feel the music inside twisting us and resolving. I've heard great players make that comment that Steel/Slide is the ultimate for that expression, far greater than a whammy bar or the limit on a 12" radius fretboard. 
I think better instruction on Lap Steel would have helped and encouragement from other players to experiment...I've been looking for the Jimmi Hendrix of Steel for decades and have offered dozens of guitars to hopefulls. If there is to be a future for Lap Steel, the Rock/Blues world needs to open it's eyes to the amazing depth of feeling that instrument can produce to the point every studio has one waiting to make that special differance only that gutiar can make.