I agree with you that certain hard work is best done by one person, if we're talking considering problems with computationally deterministic solutions to be dif

I agree with you that certain hard work is best done by one person, if we're talking considering problems with computationally deterministic solutions to be difficult (and ignoring 'standing on the shoulders of giants' effect) then you're probably right. But, for the majority of difficult problems which don't have single fixed solutions, i.e. real-world problems, I wouldn't give a single expert working in isolation the time of day. (The questions you suggest are straw men. I'll only say that I wouldn't want to see those on SE either, but I don't consider those are the style of questions under discussion here.)