Good post Don, you are right. It will take someone using something outside
of the system to make a break-through.
There are a plethora of fine new inventions each year. Most of us neither
hear of nor see them. There is a huge distance between an excellent idea
and marketplace acceptance. Unless consumers learn about and accept
something new it has no commercial life and it lies on a shelf. Wright came
up with a great design in his Usonian houses. Few were built. Many years
later it took Eichler's enthusiasm, money and marketing to cause the design
to gain acceptance. Most people make no connection between FLW and the
design although Wright was not only inside the system, he, to a substantial
degree, was the system.