I don't have it in front of me, but Pius XII (whom I hope to see canonized one day) made the observation that to expect rigidly uniform participation from the faithful would be horridly misguided and wrong. What the priest does is highly regulated, but only custom regulates the actions of the assembled lay faithful.

if I were Pope

Start by answering your call to vocation as priest.

Then shepherd your flock, so you become Bishop.

Then, Archbishop, then Cardinal, and eventually..., perhaps... as you wish, no low Masses! By that time you'll have a LOT of shepherding experience!

With the authority of the KEYS of Peter. Who denied Christ. Reminded every morning with a cock crow. These crows used to be common, even in cities. I wish they still were.

All snarkiness aside,... if you are in position to consider a vocation, please do!
There aren't enough...

since vernacular, no Catholic commits sin and all of them can quote the entire Catechism from memory

LOL. If changing to the vernacular and promoting the understanding of and active participation in the traditional, received Liturgy were Bugnini's only goals, perhaps we might have had a fighting chance to actualize the optimal meaning of lex orandi statuat legem credendi, but, as we all know, the original Liturgical Movement was "hijacked" (cf. Ratzinger) and the goals changed to include ritual change and the desacralization of the texts to become more palatable to Protestants.

What were the goals of the original Liturgical Movement? I ran across them last night in Dom Beaudoin's book, Liturgy, the Life of the Church, (original publication date: 1914) and I think it's worthwhile to review them, (in the context of the EF, of course):

1) The active participation of the Christian people in the holy Sacrifice of the Mass by means of understanding and following the liturgical rites and texts.
2) Emphasis of the importance of the High Mass and of the Sunday parish services, and assistance at the restoration of collective liturgical singing in the official gatherings of the faithful.
3) Seconding of all efforts to preserve or re-establish the Vespers and the Compline of the Sunday, and to give to these services a place second only to that of the holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
4) Acquaintance and active association with the rites of the sacraments received or assisted at, and the spread of this knowledge among others.
5) Fostering a great respect for, and confidence in, the blessings of our Mother Church.
6) Restoration of the Liturgy of the Dead to a place of honor, observance of the customs of Vigils, and Lauds, and giving greater solemnity to the funeral services, and getting the faithful thereat, thus efficaciously combating the de-Christianizating of the rite of the dead.

To borrow a thought from The Sound of Music, I'd like so say a word in its defense.

Musicians sometimes make the mistake of thinking that Mass is a concert with a Eucharistic side show. Yes, I'm sure this also happened during the days of the unreformed liturgy, because human nature doesn't change. For the good of those musicians (at two levels) a Mass without music could intelligently be maintained. What are the two levels? 1) Low Mass (or even Low Mass w/ Organ) gives the musician more time to bend the knee in service of Our Lord; 2) If musicians think themselves indispensable, this would give them pause to consider a contrary position.

Chris:

Very well said. I love it. 'concert with a Eucharistic side show'. Wow. Waaaaay too much of this have I seen in my lifetime.

You know that ad orientem means 'towards the East', not 'stand in front of the altar with your back to the people', right?

The question of ad orientem always being toward geographic East has always been understood by liturgists, such that no matter what geographical direction the church actually faces, there is "liturgical East."

One of the strongest reasons for celebrating the extraordinary form is that it is a way of preserving the treasury of sacred music integrally. The norm for the extraordinary form was always the High Mass, the low Mass originally being a concession to those who could not attend a High Mass.

But it was an unintended consequence of the early liturgical movement, which saw the dialogue Mass as a means of getting the people to follow the liturgical rites, that the dialogue Mass, which is a low Mass, came to be quite prevalent.

I assisted at a monthly Extraordinary Form Mass which drew a significant congregation; when we first began it, it was a High Mass, but it was clear that the people who came wanted a dialogue Mass, most likely because that was the Latin Mass that they knew from tradition.

It was said in Greek for some centuries, and Greek was retained in a few places; there was a revival of the Ordinary of the Mass in Greek in Carolingian times. When it was changed to Latin, Latin was the vernacular, the development of the Romance languages was gradual, and and Latin remained a language close enough to those languages that it was received as an archaic form of their vernacular, according to recent scholarship. It also remained a lingua franca in academic circles until the nineteenth century. The Oxford proceedings which rejected Newman's via media was conducted in Latin.

As far as the EF stemming only from the Council of Trent, the very Mass that was authorized by that council was based upon pre-existing models; the Tridentine Mass was quite conservative and kept most of the liturgy that had been observed for centuries before. The Canon of the Mass, for instance had been said since the first millennium.