Hoppy Blondes are Session IPAs

Bring on the Golden Ales, I'm game.

 

If changing the malt and hop varieties creates a new style than there would be an impossible number of styles! Porter at one time was brewed entirely from brown malt which none of it is now.Brown malt isn't even available.
Lager malt is basically slightly less kilned than normal Pale Ale malt , it is less flavoursome but then some varieties are much more flavoursome than others anyway.But it is still Pale Malt.
Fact is that Pale Ales (ot Bitter to use the customers' description) vary in colour from straw through red to brown.Boddington's and say St Austell Tribute are markedly different in hue. Hoppiness and bitterness also form a wide spectrum as do the use of different hop varieties.The old Shipstone's where you could smell the hops from the glass a yard away was quite different from London Pride.
Pale Ale therefore is a broad church and IMO Golden Ales are not worthy of being a separate style .Just one part of the spectrum

 

When talking about Green King IPA, I would say the best car analogy would be like calling the Yugo a luxury automobile.

 

No, it's a good example of what IPA had evolved into during the 20th century. Perhaps it's like calling Rolls Royce Silver Ghost a luxury automobile.
As Ron Pattinson says, those who say GK IPA isn't really an IPA don't know what they are talking abouthttp://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/english-ipa.html.
And to quote Martyn Cornell ,
Meanwhile, here’s a small rant directed at all those idiots who keep chuntering on about how Greene King IPA is “not an India Pale Ale” and how IPA has to be “strong and strongly hopped”, so it would survive the long journey to the Indian sub continent, over 200 years ago. You don’t have a clue what you are talking about.

 

I'm actually agreeing with your point, since I bet folks would have been impressed with the Yugo 80 years ago. I've never heard anyone claim a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost is not a luxury automobile by today's standards. I've seen the BMW and Mercedes drivers' collective jaws drop when one rolls past Grosvenor Square.

 

Yes, but it was a luxury automobile of its time. For comfort , performance and reliability it was rotally unlike today's equivalents .GK IPA was a good 20th century IPA and should be judged on that.

 

Yes it is, although it appears to be slightly different from what it was a 100 years ago.

http://byo.com/hops/item/1751-brown-malt
http://www.northernbrewer.com/crisp-brown-malt