RE: ml preferance
My kids will start with a sidelock and open sights. I'm still a firm believer in teaching the basics and fundamentals of marksmanship before you give them a scope and the deceiving mangification allows them to try long shots they are not ready for. Open sights encourage them to learn fundamental hunting skills like stalking, stand postion, etc.
I do not think it hypocritical at all that I usually (not always) hunt with a scope now. When I was a kid I hunted virtually every day of the season and it was no big deal not to get anything, I was learning. I'm older now, learned those lessons, and get 1-2 days of gun season and 3-4 days of bow to fill the freezers of 3 families. I look forward to the rare occasions I get to stillhunt with a carbine-sized MLand open sights as a treat.
As for the whole traditional vs inline debate, roundballs and scopes are the only things that make a real difference. Location of ignition is meaningless unless you're restricting to flintlock. Give me a Hawken and a scope and a conical, and 300 yds is still a realistic distance in my hands. One of my planned future projects is actually to make a rifle from scratch that has a nice long barrel, open vernier-style sights, and shoots conicals accurately for a long, long ways. Fully traditional yet a true long-range weapon (primarily for paper punching though).
Most of these people are really seeking to limit the number of people in the woods, not technology. Where I grew up, before inlines came out, just as many people seemed to be out during ML season then as now, they just carried Kmart Hawken-style guns instead of Kmart inlines.