[stouset]

> someone has a bright idea while lacking in other dimensions; the crypto community instead of embracing this idea and helping this person to bring something excellent to the world, shoots them instead down

I'm sorry, but this is essentially never the case. This is no different than in other fields, for instance math or physics, where complete novices come in every day believing they've had a completely novel idea that will revolutionize the field. 999,999 times out of a million they haven't, and in the one remaining case they've come up with a solution in search of a problem.

"Oh, you've come up with a new cipher? Congratulations. Assuming it is secure, why should we use it ? Is it faster than existing ones? Simpler and more likely to be implemented correctly? Resistant to timing attacks? Resistant to CPU power analysis? Resistant to differential cryptanalysis? Suitable for low-CPU and low-memory embedded devices? Oh, none of these things? Gee, how interesting."

I'm reminded of http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=304