But does it make sense to think when you're competing with a think-tank of hundreds of agents who all are more intelligent than you AND have way more stamina.

I'd like to think too that the person who can sit quietly in a room and think has an evolutionary advantage over, say, an influencer on tiktok doing silly dances, but the reality seems to be more and more that this is wishful thinking. Nerds have made themselves irrelevant.