> Software folks are obsessed with copying what has been shown to work to the point that any advance quickly becomes a cargo cult

Seems more accurate to say they are obsessed with copying "what sounds good". Software industry doesn't seem to copy what works, rather what sounds like it'd work, or what sounds cool.

If they copied what works software would just be faster by default, because very often big established tools are replaced by something that offers similar featurage, but offers it at a higher FPS.