"... not some group of smart people who try to come to a consensus."

You mean like the IETF?

IETF doesn't create the vision (and the results are embarrassing when they try); it standardizes stuff (and lets people add tons of optional complexity) after the initial prototype is done. IEEE and ECMA have similar attitudes while ISO seems to do more design-by-committee.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Yes, like IETF. Not discrediting their contribution. Organizations like those are needed, just like how a non-founder operator CEO can be beneficial once a startup takes off.

The problem I see is when in their supposed wisdom they discredit the potential contribution of some lone visionary. And this goes back to your original premise, with which I strongly agree. History shows that sometimes one highly skilled programmer working alone has accomplished things that teams of programmers could not.

https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7282 http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/24.pdf

"Rough consensus and running code"