"not all practitioners were masters, and a lot of arts were just meant to be ways of defending either the common person or the common soldier. few people had the time to achieve mastery, so they simply learned as much as they could from what worked best in their given area. "


I totally agree. It's easy to get carried away with the fantasy that everyone running around in China was Wong Fei Hung or Fong Sai Yuk. We forget that 99.99% of them were just regular spuds like people are today. Who the heck had the time (or inclination) to become a kungfu 'master' when it took all your energy to till the fields, round up the chickens, and hide the family from whatever marauding army was passing through that week.