Barry, thanks for your thoughtful response.  Obviously the answer is in the
shadings and emphases one places on the various aspects of the museums'
operations.

The only point I would like to re-iterate is that museums as we now
conceive them are relatively recent things.  The sacred public trust of
preserving objects is very specific to our time, and the seriousness with
which we research provenances etc are similarly conditioned by this time.
Cabinets of curiosities, fake pieces of the true cross, weird objects from
pygmys down under, etc, are as much a part of the museum lineage as the
vault of historical truth that you are (legitimately, from my point of
view) worried about losing.

As far as I can tell, all this concern about glitz started with the Met in
the late 60's.  The upshot of that glitz is that the met has grown into,
arguably, the greatest encyclopedic museum in the world.  So I wouldn't
despair, unintended consequences can be beneficial as well as destructive.

Eric