My view would be to have them use their cleverness by having them work on tooling, and that the measure of success is how well it works for the rest of the team

My view would be to have them use their cleverness by having them work on tooling, and that the measure of success is how well it works for the rest of the team. That ties their cleverness to the team's acceptance of the usefulness of the tool. Might be a humbling experience for them.