The metaphor of the tide continues to be apt. No two high tides are the same. It does not make sense to say that yesterday's tide is in some sense better or worse than tomorrow's. The tides are different - reaching one part of the beach today, a different part tomorrow. And yet, somehow, the overall impression from one month to the next is that there has been no real change.
Language is like that - but over decades and centuries.
There will be temporary confusion in one part of the language while there is transition, and then the uncertainty will resolve, while some other part of the language begins to shift. Language change is as unpredictable as the tides. It depends on the wind, on whether something unusual has happened deep out in the ocean, on ripples set up by a group of jetski enthusiasts - or maybe someone will simply move the pebble. All of these influences have their parallels in language. Oceans do not stop the pressures of linguistic change, as the impact of American English on Australian, British and other world varieties of English has repeatedly shown.