By definition, if I were to leave the Japanese influence behind and start
doing other styling, selection, potting, etc, techniques and following
rewritten rules, I would no longer doing Bonsai.

I dunno. If you write a play set to music, complete with recitative & arias,
but it isn't in Italian & doesn't follow classic Italian styling, is it still
an opera?
If you make an object out of a folded square of paper, but you depart from
traditional Japanese rules, is it still origami?
If you create a modern American picture out of little squares of plastic with a
glue that was invented five years ago, is it still a mosaic?
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming
train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)