I'm a little disturbed by sweeping pronouncements on the sarangi and harmonium like "fast taans don't sound good on the sarangi" and the obvious dismissive criticisms of the harmonium's pitch. I have listened to fast taans from say Bundu Khan and Ramnarain which were absolutely exquisite.

Going back to the original post, I don’t think Jairazbhoy “demolished” the concept of the 22 srutis. He graphed some recordings and found that the performers were not 100% consistent with their Gas and Pas, etc. We see the same thing with the graph of the singer on the tuningmeister website. I would say this falls in the category of “no one is perfect” rather than “the srutis are just mysticism”.
In my experience, the srutis are an integral part of the music. It’s the kind of thing you have to learn first hand from a teacher who knows his stuff. What would Sri Rag be without that particular komal re? How is that re different from the komal re in Bhairav or the komal re in Marwa? How is the komal ga in Bilashkani Todi different from the one in Bhairavi or Kafi? The chari ni in Megh? The chari Dha in Desi Todi? These things are not just a matter of the whim of the artist. But yes, they are like “blue notes” in that the only way you can play them correctly is by getting the feeling.
Khansahib has regularly demonstrated the srutis to us on his sarode (he delineates 23 ½). I’m sure that different gharanas will have different interpretations of the srutis – just as they do of the ragas. But let’s not be so quick to dismiss it all.

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I was listening to Bismillah Khan last night just as I went to sleep. The shehnai is really way out-of-tune. I thought to myself, it's funny that no one on the forum mentioned that. The shenai is just as out-of-tune as the harmonium, and sometimes more so. However, when you're listening to Bismillah, who cares? It is precisely the feelings which he expresses which capture your imagination and heart and take you off to some other realm.

There is another discussion on it -

I'm saying the instrument is inherently out-of-tune, even more so than the harmonium. Just ask any shehnai player how hard it is to bend the notes into relatively good intonation.

In my view:

.......I would say this falls in the category of “no one is perfect” rather than “the srutis are just mysticism”.
In my experience, the srutis are an integral part of the music. It’s the kind of thing you have to learn first hand from a teacher who knows his stuff. What would Sri Rag be without that particular komal re? How is that re different from the komal re in Bhairav or the komal re in Marwa?
.........
These things are not just a matter of the whim of the artist. But yes, they are like “blue notes” in that the only way you can play them correctly is by getting the feeling.
Khansahib has regularly demonstrated the srutis to us on his sarode (he delineates 23 ½). I’m sure that different gharanas will have different interpretations of the srutis – just as they do of the ragas. But let’s not be so quick to dismiss it all.

.......It seems to me a lot of this discussion is grafting on to Indian music concepts which are essentially Western and not relevant. A rag is not a scale, and there are even rags which have the same scale, such as Surdasi Malhar and Samanta Sarang. What distinguishes rags is the colors expressed in each note, and these feeling translate in suble shades of pitch as well. People take some concept like "22 shrutis" (I've heard 24, but who's counting) and go off on a roll with it to places it was never meant to go. One time I asked Aashish, "Is the Re in Puriya the same shruti as the Re in Sohini?" And he said, "I don't know, let me check." He then got out his sarod, played both rags for a few minutes, and said, "Yes." The shrutis come out of the rags, they are not a classification system.

Ravi Shankar is on record as saying the vadi-samvadi system is not correct, as a rag is defined by its weak notes as much as by its strong notes - a note in its weakness makes the rag as much what it is as the feeling expressed in the strong notes. Reducing the feeling expressed in the notes to a western-cataloged series of mathematical intervals isn't relevant to Indian music, it does not reflect whatsoever what is going on within the music, and does not improve anyone's understanding of the music.

When the musician gets to the point where he (or she) can express the feelings latent in each rag, the pitches fall into place, assuming they have basic sur-skill. And, since these very feelings vary somewhat from gharana to gharana, it's no wonder that the pitches do too. For instance, the Dha in Marwa and Hindol is higher in pitch because it is so strong and expresses vira rasa. All these shrutis make perfect sense in context, it when they're taken out of context and made into some artificial musicological system by people who are essentially musicological dilettants that the trouble begins.