[alephnerd]

> The system is rewarding conscientiousness and consistency over creativity

This assumes that you can get to the top via rote skills alone. Rote learning only gets you so far and most of those kinds flame out.

It's hard to describe, but once you meet actually talented people what you end up seeing is that they're just extremely diligent and deeply passionate about a topic and will continuously execute.

For example, when I was in HS I wrestled. Yes there were physical differences that could impact a sparring round, but technique and preparation was almost always able to outcompete base innate talent. Later, I ended up learning ballet the Russian style and it was the same - the truly creative types who were at Vaganova or Paris had already built strong fundamental and technical skills which allowed them to mix and match and create.

You cannot be creative without also being diligent and understanding fundamentals.

The "eccentrics" and "mad geniuses" are few and far between, and to find people with talent, you do need to use exclusionary tactics like scores and interview performance.