Sorry to throw my hat in this discussion so late but maybe I can answer a few questions if not maybe some insight.
On the subject of Sifu Lam's retirement, i'm not surprised. Actually anyone who learned in his current school are very lucky because I've known your sifu before he had any students. When he left his original school on Green Street, he was going to "give up teaching way back then". So you guys can count your luckly stars because you are very lucky he decided open another school to continue to teach.
As for what style Hung style influence BSL it was Hung as translated as Red Style not the Southern Hung style. There is no southern influence in BSL unless the practitioner was taught a southern style first before learning BSL.
As for the Hsing-i moves in BSL #9 and #10, there is really no way to validate when these particular moves were added. The current lyrics that we have for BSL are dated back to the late 1930's or early 1940's. I suspected that when KYC was in the Kuo Shu Provencial schools during the mid - 1920's, he was exposed to Hsing - i.
Now Wan Li Sheng was also at the Kuo Shu provencal schools at the same time. In WLS's Lui Ho Sets, the same Hsing-i techniques are found in his Lui Ho sets. However, in WLS's first TCMA book, the Lui Ho hand set that he writes about does not have the Hsing - i techniques.
With these two examples, one could draw conclusions but cannot be definitative, that these two masters incorporated the Hsing -i moves into their sets.
Now when I asked my sifu about my simple conclusions, he answered that these styles are very old and have a long history. Masters of different styles cross paths throughtout our long history. In order for todays TCMA styles to exist this long, the past masters have already mixed and tried every possible techniques that would work. Of course you will find similar techniques in different styles, but one as to remember some styles will branch off and use certain preferred techniques over others and hence, you have a specialized style, call it what you want, etc.
So I guess what he was trying to tell me is that most styles are complete in itself for its purpose, so it is not unusual to find what appears to be techniques from other unrelated styles within the style one is studying. Solid principles of fighting are found in all TCMA. They are the same. It is a matter of identifying it and knowing when to use it. In reality, we tend to read into what we think we see as a form of identifying a reference point. This is why when we observe different styles we tend to reconize certain techniques and say, it looks alike or is similar to.... and draw our own conclusion that maybe these two styles are related somewhere in the past when they are really are not related but just express the same principles of fighting throught similar moves.
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Ha ha! Write me PM and I'll fill U in.
the whole 'only applicable to combat' is such a limited perspective. Sure, you can be reductionalist, and limit yourself only to fighting techniques that work in the ring. Boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling, these sports are not that complicated. There's an elegance to simplicity. But there's also a power to complexity. Discarding forms throws the baby out with the bathwater for TCMA. 
