Swings are fun. I like neighbor swings. So do many dancers. It's more
interaction with your neighbors, which is half the fun. If I have two
dances that are very similar, but one has a neighbor swing and one
doesn't, I would enjoy dancing the one with the neighbor swing more.
However, I also don't think every dance needs a neighbor swing. It is
possible to hold both views! To prefer dances that have neighbor
swings - even composing variations to insert them when they weren't
there originally - and to not require every dance to have a neighbor
swing.
I can't put words in Don's mouth, but he might have merely meant "I
might have called this sooner if it had a neighbor swing", not "I
don't care for dances with no neighbor swing".
Also, Don, you might want to note these are double progression (the
result of left diagonal right and left thru).
On a related note, I prefer single progressions to double
progressions, but not every dance needs to be a single progression...
Cheers,
Yoyo Zhou