Well science is hard, that's nothing new. It seems like it is assumed that a great scientific breakthrough is made overnight by seemingly one person, in reality

Well science is hard, that's nothing new. It seems like it is assumed that a great scientific breakthrough is made overnight by seemingly one person, in reality it's the culmination on decades of previous research and observations made by several people. What we should be really questioning is whether the current system of academia is making things harder or easier to get this groundbreaking discoveries. If Einstein was born to day and went to the BSc -> masters -> PhD -> postdoc route that's currently on place would he still come up with the relativity theory? Would it take him more time, maybe less?