I guess it's obvious that I agree with you, HP.
Not only were there many excellent straight-ahead acoustic jazz records made, I would assert that there was an explosion of new and interesting directions for jazz that are still being worked through today -- acoustic, electric, and otherwise. Basically, the 1970s were a period of unprecedented diversity, a time that one author has called "diverging streams" -- as if jazz were a river entering its delta. For that reason, I would argue that jazz from the 1970s represents the beginning of the jazz world we live in today.