Your rebuttal is that GLP was a highly desirable target for a long time before we stumbled upon a way to hit it... and this is evidence that the "stumbling upon a way to hit it" was not a super critical and super fortunate event...?
> How much did gila monsters buy? Maybe a year or two?
Why'd you put "a year or two?" here and not "a decade or two?" or "a century or two?" Do you have reason to believe it was a year or two away, sans Gila monster? If so, can you provide your reasoning? Per your own point, GLP was a desirable target for a long time without successful hits. We have plenty of targets that are desirable for decades without figuring out ways to hit them well enough to make a good drug.
the earlier habener results that actually got us to glp-1s via anglerfish pancreas would have been similarly derided. substitute that in if it helps.
so, you should really recalibrate being taken in by just-so stories of basic science being SUPER important.