Research Debt

Something critical here is that is really rare for academics to get career advancement out of doing something better, only for doing it first.

People like David Hestenes, for instance, are all about better notations for physics, not a new theory but just something a little better than the usual 'scalars and vectors'. You get the same answers this way, but maybe faster, more clear, etc. Huygens was able to calculate it long ago so there is nothing to see... Move on...

In commercial life it is possible for something 5% better to displace the old, but the 'winner take all' structure of academia means no sustaining innovations.