Ah Grim...................... so you have just berated percussion and trashed most instrumentalists at Pennsic..
Here's a few simple facts:

We are part of the Society for CREATIVE ANACHRONISM.

Most if not ALL of the instruments played at Pennsic are not period at all. Although the guitar did exist within the period of the SCA it was very very very late period and uncommon. Clarinets didn't exist at all (18th century). Metal valved flutes didn't exist at all(19th century). The modern violin didn't exist at all (18th century and the chin rest was 20th century). The cumbus didn't exist at all (1920's). Metal darbukas (doumbeks) most certainly did exist but the synthetic heads of course are a 20th century invention as are almost all of the strings (synthetic) on all of the stringed instruments played at Pennsic. Celtic music was not accompanied by the Bohdran (That came to Celtic music in the last quarter of the 19th century).
Warriors didn't have stainless steel armor and weapons were not made in stainless steel (20th century). I don't thing anyone wore plastic armor and I'm pretty certain that duct tape didn't exist. Machine woven synthetic and florescent colored fabrics are most definitely not period. Potatoes, tomatoes, sweet corn, and a whole variety of foods were not period in Europe.
People in the Dark Ages, High Middle Ages and Renaissance would actually stop and listen to music. Ten thousand boisterous populace clanking around wearing armor and noisy bright swords most likely were not wandering through market places, and if they were, there probably wouldn't have been any musicians playing ouds and saz's and doumbeks (Lutes, hurdy gurdy's and tambours would be more likely unless those musicians sensibly ran into the hills for fear of all of the heavily armed commoners and barbarians walking around that looked like they were up to no good).
I doubt very much if you would have had Arabs, Japanese, Vikings and French nobles walking around the market places together either.
I'm not saying it wouldn't have happened, but you must agree that it would be highly unlikely.
We are not a living history group. We are not Timeline.
The world that we live in is loud. We have passing planes, the hum of refrigerator motors, golf carts and other motor vehicles passing by at Pennsic, and a very loud and rude populace.
An oud and a saz are very subtle instruments. They are always amplified when played in arenas and clubs in the real world outside of the SCA and will go unheard within the SCA if they are not. For larger venues, the only instruments that will be heard over percussion would be horns, bombards, bagpipes, shawms and brass instruments (That must be why they don't have minstrels strumming lutes to announce the oncoming army or the arrival of royalty).
I make my living as a musician and I play clubs with dancers at least 3 nights a week. I am a percussionist (by choice) but I also play keyboards and trumpet (I just prefer percussion). I can play very loud, much louder than a novice wailing away on a mylar head doumbek, and I don't strike the drum nearly as hard. It is all in the technique. I can also play very clear and distinctly playing very softly so that I can be heard, but then the "doumbek cowboys" at Pennsic start walloping their drums. Thankfully most of those that bring djembes to Pennsic have no idea how to play them because djembes played properly can be heard for miles away (9th century instrument).

In the SCA we are inviting. We encourage people to bring their instruments. Very often these are instruments that were never meant to be played together or from places so foreign to each other that they never would have been. That's one of the charming aspects of the SCA.
We are like a melting pot of culture and ideas from different periods and cultures all singing together in one big cacophonous choir. Maybe not great music, but certainly great fun. (It's kind of like adults acting like kindergarden kids when the instrument box comes out.)

Live with it. Sometimes we need to use amplification on voices that can't be heard otherwise. It's the SCA.