I'm expressing this badly, I think. Maybe I should try it again, without the pinot noir, and the Muscadet, and the bubbly, and the Rubentis, and the Laudun...
I think that many producers who make an active choice for ambient yeasts think they are making better wines as a result, for whatever personal values of better they hold. It has not been my experience that, when discussing this subject with producers who've made that active choice -- and I want to specify "active" because some producers just keep doing it as they've been taught, or because to do it any other way seems nontraditional and odd -- they make that choice because they have this series of thoughts: "I want to make better wines than I'm making; I should switch to ambient yeast, and then they'll be better."
Usually, the internal (or external) discussion that leads to that choice is not one related to quality, but part of a larger or smaller change in approach and intent that may span both farming and oenology. Something more like this: "I want to do this stuff better, and hopefully I'll end up with better wine as a result," again for whatever personal values of "better" one holds in each instance. My argument is that those two uses of "better" aren't necessarily the same thing, and that while the latter is probably (but doesn't have to) be qualitative, the former is more complicated, and might not even be qualitative at all.
The reason I'm talking about this here in this context is because so many people fail to make this choice because they can't deal with the uncertainty that results. It's a philosophical hurdle they can't crest because they feel that control is necessary for quality, and they're unable to conceive of uncertainty being a path to quality. For someone who goes ambient, they kinda have to embrace that uncertainty, at least in the beginning. "I am going to make a better wine" as a declarative philosophy, to me, inherently assumes control of the process, and while that's not the opposite of going ambient, it's at least headed in a different direction.
Of course, there must be some people who did have the first hypothetical conversation in their heads, just as they've had it for sulfur (I'm pretty sure the barbera producer we visited did in fact have that thought, re: sulfites), or while choosing to plant more tannat and less merlot, or whatever. But I mostly haven't talked to those people, I guess.
Gotta go drink some more wine. I'm sure I can bring more confusion to this conversation when I return.
