Honestly, I don’t really think it’s all that controversial. I started skiing around 15 years ago and there have always been people on very wide skis as their daily drivers and others not.. even in New England. Ski selection is very subjective.
I ski in the Northeast and can find a good selection of widths to demo. After my first few seasons I went to 84-98 width skis and never looked back. For years I stuck to mostly the high 90s just because I liked those skis best. My current daily drivers are 85 for very icy days (Stockli Stormrider 85), and 86 and 92 (Volkl Blaze 86 and Sheeva 9 which is 92 underfoot) for everything else. I can carve all of them very well, and never exclusively worked on carving on skinny skis outside of one season where I did a race clinic with some junior race skis. I get compliments from instructors on my high edge angles often. I do not have knee pain from skiing any of my skis, but I just turned 40 so perhaps that will come! Lol So far my knees have never been unhappy with any of my ski choices though. I do seasonal programs at my home mountain and did a ski week in Taos this year, I enjoy working on technique with high level instructors and do it often. I have never been told by any of them that I should be on a narrower ski. I have seen others have this experience, but that hasn’t been mine yet.
Anyway, I might be an outlier, but I don’t really put a huge emphasis on ski width. It’s more the characteristics of the ski that matter to me. As you can see above, my 85 width Stocklis I use for extreme New England ice, and they hold an edge on everything. Then I skied an 86 width ski this season on everything from a bunch of powder at Taos, to bumps and trees all season, and all spring even an almost 80 degree day last weekend. They are super versatile. I can use the 92 underfoot Sheeva pretty interchangeably with the Blaze as well.
I do 100% advocate for demoing before buying a ski. I have had several instances where I cannot get a pair of skis off of my feet fast enough. It would be horrible to buy skis and find that out after the fact. I just wouldn’t overthink it so much.. get out and demo and then choose what you like best. If your shops don’t have what you want to demo, maybe that’s a good excuse to take a trip elsewhere and play with some demos.