the continuity and tradition from ardkore to dubstep lies in the use of its most potent sonic signifier. The BREAKBEAT.
Dubstep continues in the tradition only if you acknowledge the breakstep influence as a legitimate pre cursor and major influence on the sound via labels like hotflush and storming productions and through artists like toasty, caspa, distance and reso. To follow its pure half step canon is to exclude it from the continuum. However, the line blurs when you mix up halfstep and "fullstep" in the same tunes and by the same artists.
Excluding the breakbeat as percussive elements explains why funky with its bashment style beats isnt following in ardkores tradition and as much as 'wonky' isnt even a genre, for the sake of expediency it also explains why it would qualify with zomby, classified as a w***y artist's, use of breakbeats in some of his tunes. As far as i've heard joker and gemmy dont use breakbeats tho. Inclusion does however give blackdown a convenient 'in' and validates his pet wonk descriptor to the ardkore tradition. Personally i see those artists championed as vanguards for the w**k falling within dubsteps sonic boundaries.
Were i then able to put a question to Mr Reynolds it would be. Why, if you're using the breakbeat as the most recognisable signifier to chart a line of continuity between genres did you not start it with its first use by UK artists? Is it because in starting with ardkore as beginning of your continuum it places it solely within the confines of londons rave/drug culture of which you were looking to promote as the UK's most important breeding ground for new musical traditions to the exclusion of other significant breakbeat traditions initiated by the likes of madchester ?