What is Wicca today?

There is much disagreement and controversy revolving around WHAT Wicca is today. Pagans I meet are telling me, "Well, I am Pagan, but I am not too crazy about those Wiccans." We seem to be viewed as the stuck-up older sisters and brothers of today's "new" Pagans. The entire problem seems to center around the idea of hierarchy. 

I was first initiated into a very egalitarian Starhawk-oriented coven. This was long before the "Reclaiming Tradition" was ever named.  Then I was initiated into a so-called Gardnerian coven of what I still feel is a dubious nature. They said they were Gardnerian. I'm not too sure they weren't Alexandrian or a mish-mash of both and none of it too solid. The High Priestess disappeared and I never heard from her again after my Second Degree Initiation. I found that I liked the first coven--wide-open, liberal left as they come, insistently sexual and skyclad as they were--a lot better than the stuck-up Gardnerian group with their $100 dress-up robes.

I can hear you thinking., "What's this she's saying? I thought she operated her own group according to the degree system? Huh? How does this make sense?" Well, sometimes I am a mass of contradictions. Common sense is a path of moderation between too extremes. Everything in moderation, even moderation.

One of the biggest problem we have in Wicca today is that we are tied to our traditions instead of enhanced and enlightened by them. We are afraid to change, but if we don't change, we will wither and die like any other organism in a static state. Growth means change and evolution. But how fast do we change? What do we change? Why? How? These are the questions that many do not take the time to ask themselves. "This is the way we have always done it," is the lament you hear when the dedicants ask, "Why?" Is that a good enough reason? What do YOU think?l

I have found myself staying away from the Pagan community at times. All of the bickering, disagreement and back-biting has led me to wonder about our entire path from time to time. Of course, I mostly seem to have these problems with Pagans who aren't all that crazy about Wiccans. I sometimes wonder if we even belong in the same category with the other Pagans. We're not better, just different, in so many ways. What has been your experience with the greater Pagan community if you define yourself as mostly Wiccan in your orientation? What are the differences as you see them?

PLEASE post comments here. I hope to generate a good discussion of the differences between the Wiccan path and other Pagan paths after you read this introduction into this topic.