1st response: sheesh.
2nd response: at least LW gear and literature exist .

Anybody who's followed Charles' site since the first version understands how the pursuit of lightweight once meant selecting the Dana Bridger instead of the Terraplane. Look at where we are now. The outdoors industry--the big boys and the cottage pioneers alike--has responded by providing the stuff that we once would have had to make ourselves, ala Jardine. But it's still a drop in the gear bucket, and still more or less for the fringe. I don't know about anybody else, but every time I'm on the trail I tally standard weight versus lightweight kits (something to do, ya know?) and it's probably a 95:5 ratio in favor of old school. In fact, '70s vintange external frame backpacks still outnumber packs I'd consider lightweight.

As to REI being walmart or somesuch, remember that its roots are as a climbers co-op organized to obtain impossible-to-get European climbing gear, and even today they still manage to carry useful stuff amongst the acres of clothing. Being stocked at REI not a kiss of corporate death. I've bought a Hennessy Hammock and an Integral Designs siltarp there, two small specialty makers who seem to still be intact. I bought my copy of Jardine there, for that matter.

Want to get away from the masses? It has far less to do with what kit you're carrying than your ability to route plan, and your map skills. (GPS was also supposed to kill backcountry solitude.) My hiking buddies and I had the same route-planning challenges when we carried 50 pounds as I do today, toting half that much. You don't hike twice as far on the main trail, you get off the main trail.