[neilv]

Yeah, I think there's an ambiguous connotation sometimes, such as in "academic politics is so fierce, becuase the stakes are so small" that it might just be people being petty about, say, small-pond status, because they have nothing else.

In this case, however, it might be more that there's an innate value that a small number of people recognize as important, so they care about it in a way that seems outsized, to people who aren't aware of that importance.