Thanks, this helps. Some more bickering, because, to be honest, I don't hear all of the superlatives you are using to describe Wayne's style. (Hey, sue me! )...
For one, how does all this fit with cool and chamber jazz. There can be a lot of collective/individual, supporting/supported, improvisation/reading parts stuff found there too. You say Wayne took a "whole new concept of functioning within a improvising group," that sounds as if even I could hear that...
And what about the groups coming from Europe, with their basis in folk and Banda and classical? Also collective improvisation within strict, ordered limits. How does it all compare?
It seems you might as well be hearing collective improvisation without the extrovert bite of free that usually goes with that and then labeling that lack "structured environment." Indeed a little like the introverted freedom of Guiffre, but less ragged. Maybe this "smoothness" is what you mean with Wayne's knack for playing fully formed melodic lines from the hip.
Just asking for some life lines attached to my private concrete rocks, where I think I know what's up, before I can really appreciate what you are trying to say.