I was having a conversation today with a colleague about a particular tension in technical advancement of the arts. In particular, we were discussing distribution of two different kinds of talent.
There are people who are incredibly good at inventing, and other people who are incredibly good at performing. But rare is the person who can do both with world class skill.
For example, the person who invents a new kind of movie camera is probably not going to have the skill of a Spielberg, and the inventor of a better guitar is not likely to be able to play like Segovia.
The result is a kind of lag in innovation: A new tool first needs to fall into the hands of the best practitioners. Only then can the experience of those practitioners inform further innovation.
Occasionally the same individual is able to evolve something technically while also bringing best practices to the medium. For example, Bach was inventing new musical forms even as he was using them to compose work of incomparable genius.
But Bach was the rare exception. Alas, for the most part there seems to be a law of conservation of talent at work.