"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9, RSV2CE).
For example, it's annoying to me as a reader when stories are straight-up rewrites of say the odyssey or hakespeare, or put greek/roman gods in our universe. (same with computer games that are hex based and show the hexes, or card-based games that show the cards)
But who cares that The Lion King and Hamlet may be the same story at the base, they're certainly different enough to be enjoyable each in their own right, and I wouldn't substitute one for the other in some strange form of economization.
Consider some basic stories like:
* a person travels backwards through time to prevent a tragedy.
- By doing so they cause the tragedy to occur.
- On returning to their own time they discover the tragedy was necessary for their society.
- they discover the person didn’t exist and become them.
- they discover the person isn’t as heroic as they hoped and coach them.
Even then, I can recall very good reads (or watches) that could readily fit squarely in one of those boxes but are either very well executed that you either don't see it coming, or even if you do you continue nonetheless, or that have specific context or otherwise build up that makes it very good even if it can be narratively distilled down to a simple this or that.
Also also, this list seems extremely small when compared to tvtropes.org with which, when I catch myself running down that time sink again, I always end up thinking that every single plot has already been written though sheer bruteforce.
IOW _execution_ also matters.
I don't. I'm thinking "damn, my stories are too weird and nobody will understand what's going on, or why".
There is something to be said bout a good, old-fashioned, cliché (pronounced "clee-chaeye", not "clitch"). I think the best story I ever wrote was about... dragons.
Dragons.
Cliche me now.
Once you subtract the ones that are either just straight-up wish fulfillment, or otherwise reliant on racist/sexist/ageist stereotypes, a lot of the ideas listed here are still perfectly good ideas for a story. They'd be more than "original" enough to drive an episode of Black Mirror or the plot of a mainstream blockbuster movie - areas where originality isn't as important as executing the concept in a way that has market appeal (and is hopefully also high quality).
The issue is more just that the audience for these stories are the editors of a speculative fiction magazine, and readers of that same relatively niche speculative fiction magazine. That is, people who spend a lot of time reading fiction. They, in particular, have seen all this stuff before. After a while, if your whole job is reading stories, of course you're going to get tired of even very good stories about things you've seen a hundred times before.
There's plenty of other places to submit to. If you have confidence in your work and you think your story is worth people reading, but this list suggests these particular editors won't like it... just send it somewhere else.