this is _exactly_ right. for example, nick-feamster (formerly gatech, and now at princeton) hosted a google hangout with nick-mckeown (stanford) as part of his sdn mooc on coursera. the hangout video is approx. an hour long, and is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abXezfJsqso
initial 15-20 minutes of this video describes the experience of these n/w researchers (mckeown, cassado etc) when they presented their (sdn) idea to execs at csco, their (exec's) rejection of the said idea, which indicating to them (the researchers) that it (the idea) passed the so called 'idea-smell-test' :)
if you have time to spare, watch it !