I love this approach and analogy. You're absolutely right: it's incredibly hard/impossible to _not_ make assumptions when you're part of the herd.

I'd like to think there can be enormous payoffs to this kind of careful thinking, but I suspect it pays out sporadically and sometimes not at all. Such is the fate of any outlier or pioneer.

Either way, traveling "in the ditch" means you get a lot of weird looks from people cruising by on the latest bandwagon. :-)