"the acceptance of mediocrity has never been more evident and more prevalent than what it's become these days!"

Very true and I see this kind of stuff all around my area. I think its almost expected that no one actually has any talent to preform "live" anymore, only be able to approach a medicore level of singing. I think all the Talent shows onTV which feature nothing but singing are partially to blame.
Only one place here has an open mic night on Fridays. Mostly guitar/singers doing country and folk. It just got written up in the local paper as being the greatest thing going. All I could think of was , "Great, free entertainment for the bar."
NH and assisted living places here expect free entertainment. Theres a local String Band of seniors who travel around and play for free. Nice, but when I approach the ADs for a booking they look at me weird because I want to get paid.
I just did one free one at Senior Residence and they loved me. Had them dancing and singing along for over an hour. I made it known this was your free one, in the future I need to get some compensation. The Ad agreed but said she doesn't know if she'll have any funds available. ????!!!!!
Just booked two affairs. One for a Fireman's Awards dinner and another for a benefit. Neither could care less if I bring the keyboard or not. Just as long as I DJ the same stuff done at ever other affair and "get them dancing".
They like me because I don't just sit there. I interact with the audience and dancers and I believe after all these years I do have a knack for reading a crowd. Doing the right thing at the right time instead of a preprogrammed set.

All we can do is keep trying.