> I'm beginning to think that the best way to approach a problem is by either not being aware of or disregarding most of the similar efforts that came before...

That depends...

- Krapivin was an undergrad, tinkering with stuff for fun. If he'd put a couple months into this, and just ended up re-inventing a few things? That'd be decently educational.

- Vs. if your team needs to ship product, on something resembling the schedule? Yeah. You definitely stick to tried-and-true algorithms.