"There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction," Winston Churchill
There is little doubt that the hedge fund industry has come through the extraordinary turbulence of the last two or three years in far better shape than even its most optimistic supporters might have dared to hope even 12 months ago.
But there is equally little doubt that the industry has been changed in some fundamental ways by the seismic events that have rocked every corner of the financial world.
How much of this will be permanent change and how much is a temporary reaction remains to be seen. But it is clear that a very different industry is emerging from a few years ago. And there are some important questions to be asked about exactly what kind of industry will emerge - and whether the changes that it is undergoing will be for better or for worse.
The recently published annual Deutsche Bank survey of hedge fund investors - covering investors with $1 trillion of hedge fund assets, roughly two thirds of the global industry - offers powerful confirmation of the confidence that is starting to surge through the industry again as it continues its recovery from the fall of 2008.
But it also underlines the desire of investors to see, and effect, changes in the structure and nature of hedge funds - and highlights the potential for investors unwittingly to trigger changes that may not be to their own long-term benefit.
Among the survey's findings - and one that should concern anyone who believes that the entrepreneurial, have-a-go nature of the hedge fund business has also been one of its key features and strengths over the years - is that the barriers to entry are rising inexorably.
When Deutsche first did its survey in 2002, more than 60% of investors said they would look at putting money into any hedge fund irrespective of its size. This year almost half of the investors said they would only look at a fund if it had at least $100 million in assets.
That is a huge change and - at a time when raising capital for start-ups and fund launches is harder than ever, but when there is also arguably more and better talent looking to start hedge funds than ever before - a rather worrying one.
And it confirms the views of those who believe that one of the chief effects of the crisis has been the emergence of a two-tier hedge fund industry - where a small number of big firms and funds are getting bigger and bigger, while the vast majority of smaller funds are falling off the radar of most big investors entirely.
No other statistic points more clearly to the institutionalisation of the industry that is gradually taking place - or to its inherent dangers.
Wind back the clock five years and it was all very different. Then, big investors like GAM were arguing that the best returns came from emerging manager funds, in the first three years when the hunger was keenest, and that size and longevity were impediments to performance.
Now the same investors who like to complain that managers are more focused on asset-gathering than performance routinely decide to give their money to Brevan Howard or to Lansdowne UK or to BlueCrest - although there is scant evidence that the size of most of the largest funds has adversely affected their performance at all.
That is entirely understandable. The big battalions, such as Brevan Howard, BlueCrest and Lansdowne, have been leading the way in terms of setting standards without allowing performance to slip - and they have been some of the best performers through the recent crisis.
But this channelling of capital into the top-tier firms exacerbates the risk that life simply becomes unsustainable for smaller funds - which are already having to cope with rising burdens in terms of regulation, compliance and operations.
And it raises the prospects of a schism in the industry - either temporary or permanent - between one institutional-type world of big funds with big investors and a separate private client-style world of boutique firms with more entrepreneurial managers and investors.
On the positive side, it also creates a perfect market opportunity for seeders and other early-stage investors to back new start-ups and smaller managers - as many savvy private and institutional investors have done over many years.
But it is vital that the institutionalisation of the industry, which is in many ways welcome and necessary, does not kill off its entrepreneurial culture in the process. Successful small boutiques are, and have always been, the lifeblood of this business. Whatever changes are already under way, and whatever further changes lie in store, they must continue to flourish.
Nick Evans, editor