That's more of a pedagogical question than one with a concrete answer. To your last point: I don't think being the best is something that merits praise, necessa

That's more of a pedagogical question than one with a concrete answer. To your last point: I don't think being the best is something that merits praise, necessarily. A 10000% improvement, whatever that means to you, is probably more "impressive" than being the best, but only seeing fractional gains.