Perhaps prestige needs to be replaced with something else like commercial value. Whilst this will not work for all topics, perhaps it could be one variable in a group of others that should be taken into account.
Well, prestige is used as currency precisely because we as a society need a mechanism to generate knowledge that isn't (immediately) commercializable. I, for one, would find it tragic if we lost that.
Many scientists hate the commercial part of their research. In fact that's sometimes the main reason why some of them choose to stay in (relatively) poorly paid academic positions