It wasn't quite that dramatic a whim or lucky hunch as it's made out to be. There was input from galaxy researchers on such an idea, and I think it was viewed

It wasn't quite that dramatic a whim or lucky hunch as it's made out to be. There was input from galaxy researchers on such an idea, and I think it was viewed as a bit of a calculated risk compared to other normal proposals to spend the telescope time on well-known targets visible with a few hours of observing. Especially when proposals outnumber available time by a factor of approx. 7, people will question why you should gamble on something unproven. Hence "director's discretionary time". But of course it was a smart move in setting up the field for "what's the next big thing", because if you were to find something interesting, it obviously drove the call for larger and larger telescopes to study farther and farther things. Just studying the crap out of brighter nearby things would have been relatively predictable/boring by comparison. (I exaggerate a little)