I disagree with you on all counts. Vuk made the language more logical; he did not "bastardize" it. He merely reformed it. He did not impose his revised language on the people. It was vice versa - he simply adjusted the written language to the way it had already been spoken.
Changes in a language do occur on their own, and the populus accepts them. My friends (Serbs from Bosnia, in all cases) always laugh at the way I speak, not so much because of the accent but also because of the words I (and other "northerners") use; words which are not commonly used in other parts of Serbia. But, hey, that's the way WE speak.
Language experts claim that the purest Serbian is spoken in Hertsegovina. That may be so, but only some 5% of the Serbs are from Hertsegovina. What is the standard Serbian language anyway? And why are you even mentioning the Slovenes and the Croats? They had nothing to do with it. They had their own languages and were using the Latin alphabed, weren't they?
Vuk made the language more logical. Now that's a pearl if i have ever head one. What exactly does that mean? I know it's a commonly used cliche, but it means absolutely nothing. It is pure nonsense. Bulgarian developed under similar cirucmstances and with similar roots as Serbian and is, in fact, very easily understood by the Serbs, yet you mean to tell me that somehow Bulgarian is more "awkward" or "illogical?" Last time I checked, the litteracy rate in Bulgaria was one or two percentage points higher than in Serbia!
Another one is Vuk has been dead 150 years and today's Serbian language has evolved so much that it's hardly the language the Serbs - either peasants or urban cosmopolites - spoke in the early and mid 1800s
Did you read "Gorskiy Vienats" in its original, printed in 1847? I rest my case.
The reason why the Hertsegovian form of the langue is the "purest" is because Vuk said so and because that's the BS you were fed in communist Serbian schools. Vuk had his (decrepit) reasons and they were more due to his ignorance and prejudice than anything else.
If you read Tsar Dushan's Law, you will find that it is written in common language understood by everyone. But, I bet you have not read one single original document in old Serbian, regardless of the date. Vuk's language had no memories of Serbian written cultural heritage since hardly any modern Serb can even begin to read and understand any of the Serbian litterature that's older than 100 years -- thanks to Vuk!
But that was just fine with the communist educators who raised you on their milk. You know who you are but you have no idea why, just like most of the Serb generations born without collective memory.
Vuk was opposed by not such an ignorant bunch as it is commonly depicted. It's just that the opposition to Vuk was removed or minimized in post-modern Titoslavia and since Serbs could not even begin to read their own culutral heritage more than a century old, who would know the diference!
Until Vuk, Serbs of Montenegro and Hertsegovina and Krayina and Shumadia, and Banat and Bachka, regardless how they pronounced their words all wrote the same way. There was no "ekavski" and "iyekavski" pravopis; there was one Serbian language, written in one alphabet (as is the case with all civilized European languages), and all Serbs could read their history -- in both the church and ecclasiastical form. Those who could read, that is.
I will repeat my main point,aside from the fact that Vuk destroyed the unity of the languge in written and alphabetical form, and that is that the phoney phonetics, which everyone thinks makes Serbian some hot language, has nothing to do with litteracy or greatenss of any nation. No great nation on this earth uses phonetic alphabet as its claim to fame. So, what constructive outcome are we to thank Vuk for? Greater litteracy rate? BS! Simpler language? Hardly! They can't even agree on grammar, let alone the written form; do you understand the stupidity and duplicity of using two alphabets, especially since they were created for reasons other than linguistic necessity. Did it make Serbian a universal language? NO! Did it make it more "logical?" NO! Did it divide the lnaguge? YES! Did it enrich it? NO! Serbian now borrows German and English words instead of Russian, but still borrows them nonetheless. So, what good did this man Vuk do that was so great for the Serbian people? One is almost left with the impression this myth of Vuk has created that without Vuk Serbs would be fat, dumb and happy. Today they are neither fat nor happy, but logic still escapes them.