I can't really figure this forum out. A guy known for posting belligerently provocative posts gets a thread that's still centered (mostly) on what he started the thread about by the time it gets to the 3rd page. I ask a question and try to point out on the first line what I'm NOT looking for in responses ...and the bulk of the responses center on exactly what I asked NOT to receive.
Regardless, ...and maybe I'm now guilty of what I was just saying..., I think bonsai in America could use a certifying body. Its changing a bit for the better from when I started, but there's no shortage of folks who don't know what they're doing, that have no qualms pretending they do. There's no shortage of folks who claim "Art" and "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" when they've failed to apply quality technique and design to they're trees in an effort to stifle critique. (As if "Art" is beyond critique!) I see it locally (and if you're checking my location, its probably not who you think).
Having some authority deem mastery (and hopefully it wouldn't use the word "Master") could eventually usher most of the shysters out of the market. I wonder how many folks in Japan set up shop teaching folks that don't have any more training than (whatever the Japanese equivalent would be to) a familiarity with Naka's Techniques I & II. I would suspect that person wouldn't get a wide market share of students, simply because there is a culture there that would expose folks to high quality trees if they wanted to see it ...and from that, folks would know whom to seek out for education.
I know that Colin Lewis was working on an association of bonsai professionals some time ago, but I don't know if anything ever came of it. I'd imagine it would need to be spearheaded by someone with more clout than me, ...and I'd trust that group to come up with its own criteria. (But just to get them started: Probably something like looking at past work for some small group of professionals, ...and some formal process from there on out. Maybe a grandfathering-in of those with certificates from other (recognized) certifying bodies like the Nippon Bonsai Association.)
If nothing else, if the US had this, we could put an end to threads of this nature pretty quickly.