It's an unfortunate fact about any creative industry that a person with clout can completely put the brakes on an promising idea just because it doesn't fit neatly into their worldview. This reminds me of the story when Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman pitched Bat out of Hell to CBS. Clive Davis, the executive, says "Do you know how to write a song? Do you know anything about writing? If you're going to write for records, it goes like this: A, B, C, B, C, C. I don't know what you're doing. You're doing A, D, F, G, B, D, C. You don't know how to write a song. Have you ever listened to pop music?"
Hurtful. But even though this guy was a pretty successful A&R person, he wasn't clairvoyant, as the album was a huge hit. It's unfortunate that it demoralized their team instead of serving as bulletin board motivation material.