Well if you want to take my logic down the slippery slope of your own invention then you can make me claim anything :) I don't doubt the importance of taking o

Well if you want to take my logic down the slippery slope of your own invention then you can make me claim anything :) I don't doubt the importance of taking ownership for your projects and having good taste, as opposed to design-by-committee. But I think you're overstating the degree to which they worked isolated from others. I think these examples you've given involve people with good taste (or call it vision) who said no to a lot of prevailing wisdom and yes to other ideas... but it wasn't literally "I'm going to go into my house for 5-10 years and emerge out with perfection". It's usually more iterative.