Here are my two pennies worth.
I jam pretty much every night in my hometown of marseille, France. I'm a respected blues guitarist/ music teacher, and I'm usually able to sit with the local bands and jam with them because at some point, I have taught the guitarist that's in the band.
There are at least 5/6 bassist in my town that have the chops of the late great Jaco Pastorius, a good dozen guitarists that have enough taste and touch to play blues like some of the greats, around 5/6 guitarists that would make Yngwie (or Ia, or Ron Thal) blush etc...
But while all of those guys wait for is their solo spot, I usually sit in and make the groove work. I play the solo if the singer or the guy who's in charge of the song/jam points at me and asks me to play one. I can play the bass (I usually do that since those damn guitarists won't play a "sub-6 strings" instrument) and I can pretty much play any James Brown song, any Jimi's song, most of the blues standards etc... And guess what, while other guitarists keep switching during the jam, I'm the one that sits the whole time, finally becoming the "official guitarist" of some of the jams I go to. And this, without ever having the spotlight on me.
While us, guitarists, worry about chops, the audience wants a groove to dance to, and if you can't deliver that, you can have as much chops as you want, you're not an accomplished musician... That's my opinion.