I had these fears about my dissertation work, but then realized that the “elder’s” papers were highly cited because they contained important machinery which cou

I had these fears about my dissertation work, but then realized that the “elder’s” papers were highly cited because they contained important machinery which could be modified and refined to prove other results... or the paper contained an important idea which went on to be proved in a variety of ways. Maybe it’s different outside of PDEs, but I doubt it.