I do CRUD stuff mostly at work but I always research things to improve. A good programmer can make a huge difference in CRUD applications. Things like proper relational database design can save a lot of issues down the road. Using good OOP practices can improve reliability. Keeping things DRY is great too.

I have seen some awful source code that run business applications for years.......but bad engineering practices may cost millions in the long run one way or another.

I shouldn't have said CRUD. I agree with you, there's a place for genius stuff everywhere.

What I meant is that there is also a lot of boring stuff that just needs to get done. A 10x programmer won't help you much there.

Even if you are doing mundane crud stuff, you are eventually going to run into hard problems that don't have obvious answers. Not everyone has to be able to solve those problems, but it's useful to have someone in the team who can.