There's also this notion of holding themselves to their own standards.

They, Newton included, would often feel that their work was not good enough, that it was not completed and perfected yet and therefore would be ammunition for conflict and ridicule.

Gauss did not publicize his work on complex numbers because he thought he would attacked for it. To us that may seem weird, but there is no dearth of examples of people who were attacked for their mostly correct ideas.

Deadly or life changing attacks notwithstanding, I can certainly sympathize. There's not in figuring things out, but the process of communicating that can be full of tediousness and drama that one maybe tempted to do without.

Weird typo in what I wrote. It's past the edit window. This is what I had meant to type:

There's joy in figuring things out, but the process of communicating what has been so figured can be tedious and full of drama -- the kind of drama that one maybe tempted to do without.