Its true yes that a lot of Gordons stuff really pushes the envelope in as far as what you can do with the pipes, I do understand that some stuff does sound a bit experimental, The tunes on the "thunderstruck" album are more mainstream, "just for Seumas" was recorded 13 years ago so its easy to forget the impact it had at the time on the pipeing world, the title track especially, with its fusion of dance beat and pibroch, at the time it had a massive impact on the pipeing world and made a lot of people relise that, to a degree pipeing had been "hijacked" by the British army and that notes like C Natural and F natural had a place in pipeing, and were not "false" notes at all.

One of the biggest effects was that young people realised that pipeing could be "cool" Gordon would often wear jeans/ baseball caps, play tunes like the mexican hat dance at breakneck speed, tunes by ACDC etc.
all things that the RHCP and "johnny bagpies" "get away" with doing today, mainly because Gordon Duncan took the flack from the traditionalists at the time. but because he wasnt a "novelty" piper (He played with and was a pipe major in grade one bands, and won countless comps including 2 Macallan trophies) he had the skill to be able to bridge the gap.