> I don't think Peter Higgs could have self funded CERN. I don't think a thousand Peter Higgs could have

Higgs didn't use the LHC to write the paper which won him the Nobel prize.

Additionally, I think it's worth considering that the availability of the money that built the LHC alleviates the drive to find different solutions.

As they say, "necessity is the mother of invention." I frequently think of the great pyramids and people being baffled on how they would build something of that scale without modern equipment. It's hard to get your mind to come up with novel ideas when it already knows that you'd use cranes, trucks, etc. to do it today.