In a vacuum, what you're saying sounds eminently reasonable and fair. However, being familiar with other academic fields, it's my observation that these shifts

In a vacuum, what you're saying sounds eminently reasonable and fair. However, being familiar with other academic fields, it's my observation that these shifts toward "rigor over relevance" are generally less driven by the supposed pursuit of intellectual- or self-fulfillment and moreso by perverse career incentives in academia. To be clear, this phenomenon is by no means limited to academia though.