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It shouldn't baffle you. The primary objection to WRO is that it is not a living tradition, but a reconstruction. The question is whether it is possible for Orthodoxy to create an Orthodox Western rite out of whole cloth and theories. Experience has shown that the majority of Western Rite Orthodox end up going to the Eastern rite, primarily because it is a living, full tradition next to which WRO pales -- especially in its tepid Antiochian form (with all due respect to the great St. Tikhon, after whom their BCP-based liturgy is named.)

I readily admit that I had no problem transitioning to the Eastern liturgical and spiritual world, so I don't understand the "foreign-ness" argument.

I would submit that in today's day and age, a Western Rite Orthodoxy that was the liturgical, theological, and ascetic equivalent of Eastern Orthodoxy would be every bit as foreign as is Eastern Orthodoxy. An Orthodox Christian of today transported back to, say 7th century services and Christian life in Rome, would be find it quite familiar, whereas I would wager that modern Anglicans and Roman Catholics would find it at least as foreign as their neighborhood OCA parish...

My own feeling is that there will someday be a viable and living Western Rite Orthodoxy, but it will be in the form of a Roman Catholicism that reforms itself and returns to Orthodoxy.

As a practical matter, it is also difficult for Orthodoxy to protest the techniques of Uniatism when WRO is arguably a form of the same principle in reverse.

A properly done WRO would actually *not* be the same principle in reverse, since it would be unlike any existing form of Western Christianity -- whereas Uniatism was built around the explicit principle of appearing to be exactly the same as the Orthodoxy it was imitating and attempting to displace.

But it is still a problematic charge, and does much to dampen enthusiasm for a Western Rite amongst Orthodox hierarchs.

This would seem to imply that the only valid expression of Orthodoxy is the Byzantine Rite. Which position is at odds with the statements of more synods and saints then I am going to bother with naming. Implicitly it also means that we need to tack on one more condition for Rome to be accepted back into Orthodoxy. They need to scrap their rites and adopt the Byzantine liturgy. It might be worth noting here that Liturgy of Pope St. Gregory the Great is more ancient than that of St. John of Constantinople.

The argument that most WRO wind up going Byzantine because of a lack of a living tradition is one that I would disagree with. I think its more likely they go Byzantine because there are very few WRO parishes to support them.

Uniatism is a fair issue but its not accurately approached. In the case of the Roman Uniates they are setting up separate churches with their own episcopal hierarchies that are intended as the legitimate Eastern Churches. In the case of WRO there is no separate church being created. The concept of one city one bishop is not violated. WR parishes are all under the same bishop in the same jurisdiction as the other Orthodox Parishes (setting aside for the moment the insane situation here in North America).

"I would submit that in today's day and age, a Western Rite Orthodoxy that was the liturgical, theological, and ascetic equivalent of Eastern Orthodoxy would be every bit as foreign as is Eastern Orthodoxy. An Orthodox Christian of today transported back to, say 7th century services and Christian life in Rome, would be find it quite familiar, whereas I would wager that modern Anglicans and Roman Catholics would find it at least as foreign as their neighborhood OCA parish... "

Again I don't really agree. The pre-Vatican II rite (1962 Missal) was not enormously different from the rites that were used in the latter half of the first millennium. Compare the Rites of the corrected Sarum Missal used by ROCOR with those of the 1962 Missale Romanum or even an 8th century copy of the Roman Missal and you will find few differences. I am a little more dubious about the adoptions of the Anglican Rites, but certainly the Roman Rites are not substantially different from what they were then. A strong argument could be made that the various reforms post Vatican II constitute a break with the traditional liturgical rites of the west. But these are not reflected in WRO.

I also think you are proceeding under a false assumption that the West and the East were in complete accord on things even in the 1st millennium. They were not. There were significant differences in their spirituality and their worship from the beginning. The difference is that there was a greater tolerance for diversity with Orthodoxy in the first millennium. A tolerance that has waned over the centuries.

"Never, never, never let anyone tell you that, in order to be Orthodox, you must also be eastern. The West was Orthodox for a thousand years, and her venerable liturgy is far older than any of her heresies." St. John Maximovitch