I feel very few people would argue that fear is not a powerful motivator of animal behaviour whenever it is experienced in either wild or domesticated animals
Whenever we discuss training techniques involving fear as the motivator it is bound to be controversial.
Trevor, when you refer to "American" training techniques, maybe "American Field Trial" techniques would be a more appropriate description.
I sense American kennels such as Wild Rose and Duckhill would not appreciate their training techniques being bracketed with those typically used by many professional field trial kennels in that country.
Check out the websites:
http://www.uklabs.com/ and also
http://www.duckhillkennels.com/