cherrybim, I envy your childhood. Who were the chazzanim of your youth? I well remember walking with my father on Yom Kippur during the break to hear the chazzan in the Conservative schul for a few minutes. It was rather amusing when we arrived, my father unshaven, in his big tallis and kittel. He looked rather out of place. But the ushers never gave us too hard a time. Indeed chassidim would fill up the balcony of Emmanuel in Boro Park wen Dovid Koussevitzky was there.
Regarding b’shita non-Orhthodox chazanim, where do you draw the line? You once made reference to Orthodox chazzanim who work in non-Orthodox schuls. How do you diffrentiate between the two?