Well unfortunately, that was the time I was born into. I know the Liturgy has gotten much more liberal and very inclusive lately, but I never took the time to think about the music.
As you point out, the Music director controlls the tempo of everything now. It starts with total control of the opening prayer in song, and doesn't end until after the Priest leaves during the closing song.
In the Orthodox tradition, neither the priest nor the choir director/chanters control the "tempo" of the services. It is a symbiotic relationship, with the result being (if not sabotaged -- on purpose or by accident -- by one or the other) a seamless liturgical flow. I have attended Orthodox services in large cathedrals with highly skilled choirs and chanters and in tiny missions with a couple of people to chant the hymns and responses, and it far more often than not has the same effect in either situation.
In traditional Orthodox worship, there certainly is no discussion about what hymnology will be sung. The choir director/chanters have basically nothing to say about the texts that will be used at any given service. With only modest effort, one could determine the text, the rubrics, and the melodies that will be sung at Vespers on Jan 20 2015 if I wanted to. And they will almost certainly not be exactly the same as at Vespers on Jan 20 2014.
Properly done, within each musical tradition, those chanting the responses don't even have much to say about the melodies to which the texts will be sung for much of the service -- the tone/mode of the melody, the type of melody, and often the melody itself is specified for each piece of hymnology in the service books.
Matins and Vespers in particular have great variability in the texts appointed to be sung, and yet the amount of coordination needed prior to any service between chanters and clergy is minimal to none, since we are literally both on the same page...
The true Western liturgical traditions were basically the same, and it is sad to see this all lost. Whereas one can hear traditional Byzantine chant in the smallest village church of Greece or in the largest cathedral in Romania, one can generally only experience traditional Western chants in academic recordings nowadays.
I recently bought a wonderful recording of music that was sung at the Liturgy of the Nativity of Christ from the archives of a large English cathedral -- music that dates back to the 9th and 10th centuries. Beautiful stuff, and remarkably like "modern" Eastern Orthodox worship. But you won't hear this at Sunday worship at any church in England -- only in effete recordings by professional musicologists and choirs...
american colleen, kudos to you for mentioning Thomas Day's excellent book. My Catholic friends, I really don't understand why you don't give gerbil-stuffing fruitcakes like Dan Schutte and his ilk the boot in the tuchis they so richly deserve- ah, forget the boot, they'd probably enjoy it-and restore your magnificent tradition of liturgical music. I sing in the choir of my Orthodox Church every Sunday (and Saturday night if I'm not enjoying a plate of corned beef and cabbage at Dinty Moore's saloon) and although some tones may be tougher than others, I never have to fear an atrocity like "Oh come and sit at my table..." will be plonked on my music stand. To say nothing of the Godawful version of the "Gloria" that assaulted my ears at my pal's wedding not too long ago. Stand up to these morons, folks. Your heritage is too rich to lose, and is fast slipping away.