I agree that discovery is far from a straight-forward process, and that many of the cavalier ways in which it happened in decades past would be criminally prosecuted and beyond the pale today.

But I don't think that there was ever much low-hanging fruit to begin with. Discoveries always look "obvious" ex post and almost never ex ante.

I find it best to think of "low-hanging fruit" as a euphemism that polite people have agreed to use in order to excuse the massive failure that has taken place and stop curious people like Scannell from asking too many questions.