[Ankintol]

I'd encourage you to look into Cognitive Load Theory[0].

A key finding is that people are not creative generally but are instead creative relative to their skills.

e.g. if you are not a skilled programmer your programming is very unlikely to be creative except insofar as it relates to a non-programming skill that you have acquired.

This suggests that most creative solutions will come from people who learn many things. You'd expect people with high IQ and conscientiousness (implies being organized and driven) to be the most creative group. This lines up with the best evidence I've found, and anecdotally matched my experiences as an educator and continues to as a software developer.

I think this may also explain your own experiences. The model predicts that a smart person who learns a lot less about a topic than their less smart peer would be less creative thinking the topic.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Explorations-Instructional-...