I know you said this is only for people who work mainly with silk but I have had experience of working with silks a few years back. In my opinion I would say working with silks is far easier than working with fresh flowers. You can tug and pull about silk flowers til they look right in a design but fresh flowers need a delicate and competent hand.
There are some very good silk flowers about now and there will always be a market for them. It is difficult to stock silks in a small shop though, people ALWAYS want a different colour/price/size to the ones you have in stock!! I gave up selling them 5 years ago due to that fact... now people asking almost daily if I stock them at all drives me bonkers- I can't win!!