[UberFly]

It actually IS a valid starting point. Generally when 90% of the stories that humans tell each other fall under certain patterns, it's OK to categorize and label them. That's all that the Hero's Journey that Campbell describes is. You don't have to rebel against them just because they're established and labeled.

[slowmovintarget]

This is like people claiming music theory is unnecessary. Jazz, for example, is rooted in music theory. It goes beyond it in very specific ways, but with the actual work put in to understand why.

Understanding the Hero's Journey (or the Story Circle, or the 7-Point Story Structure), and why it works is a critical foundation for moving beyond it.

Understand the Jolly Good Suggestion of Demeter before you code something that violates it. You have to understand the rules to the depth of "why" before your knowledge is deep enough to legitimately go beyond the rules.

Find the box first. Until you do that, you can't think outside of it.