What do you think of living history?

Ranging from museums to large-scale battle re-enactments, living history is quite popular these days. But a lot of people don’t seem to like it, for a variety of reasons—I’ve been doing some reading up on this, and a lot of people (academics, mostly), think that it ranges from silly to a degradation of history. Frankly, I think it’s a lot of fun, and potentially quite useful. Anyone had any good experiences to share? Opinions? Any reasons why these critics might be right?