I agree. Since this is coming out of research out of a university, I would be more inclined to guess that (at the time at least) this was actually innovative an

I agree. Since this is coming out of research out of a university, I would be more inclined to guess that (at the time at least) this was actually innovative and new work. The fastest way for a paper to be rejected is for it to have been done already, or even for it to be "obvious to anyone" with basic knowledge in the field. Also, I don't see why the fact that it's advancing existing techniques or that it's just math somehow makes it less important. There are whole fields that are just math, such as computer science originally.