You imply that works of geniuses should be noticed, but geniuses are so esoteric, rare, and difficult to understand that most wouldn't notice. Since the majority of people don't care about what geniuses care about, it's unlikely they'll appreciate it enough to link to it. If they do link to it, then it's "they" are probably a very small population of people, maybe a handful of other geniuses themselves.

The google page rank algorithm is designed in such a way that the work of geniuses should go unnoticed. Pagerank is designed for the masses. For the masses of consumers specifically.

Google is not designed for the geniuses. It's designed for people who want what everyone else wants.

In the beginning, when google was a tool used primarily by geniuses, then geniuses were the community. They were the masses that used google. Their algorithms now pick selections from a new community. Bloggers who can copy/paste. Bloggers with lots of friends who will link to their posts because the friends are asked to and because other friends reciprocate.

Google doesn't know if you are linking to a web page because you like the web page or because someone who built the web page asked you to link to it or because you are getting paid.

And google doesn't care.