Guitar playing had to be somehow disguised indeed. Springsteen has done that with his music as he gets older: more people, much covering with soloists. MK has used that in 2019 and made it pretty succesful. But you can't argue his playing in 2019 is by very far his worst ever. The gap with 2015 is abysmal. It can be seen in those songs where there is no chance of fooling anybody. Just listen to a 2019 Brothers in Arms, a not very difficult song to play for him in terms of technique, and you'll see huge sloppiness and a suprisingly unknopflerly way to combine voice and guitar, which is one of his more celebrated trademarks (in BiA he was so stressed with his guitar parts between bars that he almost didn't make it to the mike to sing the verses, and sometimes you could not hear his voice). Hey, 2015 had even some decent Sultans!