Gauss's notes and margins is riddled with proofs he didn't bother to publish - he was wild.
Not sure if true, but allegedy he insisted his son not go into maths, as he would simply end up in his father's shadow as he deemed it utterly Impossible to surpass his brilliance in maths :'D
It's very much not a binary choice between procedural vs handcrafted. Procedural content creation is truly great at some stuff, while the same is true for handcrafted creations. The real trick is to blend handcrafted and procedurally generated in such a way that both tools get maximal utilization in the domain they excel in.
I knew a guy that suddenly in his thirties started believing the earth was flat. His friends ignored it and tried to play it off. I tried talking to him to no avail.
One night I couldn't sleep and thought about how an average guy like him could do a 180 like that. I googled just to see what arguments the 'movement' tried to lean on. The following weeks I was bombarded with suggestions of more flat earth content, even after downvoting it YouTube kept recommending it for weeks if not months.
Who knows how many minds have been eroded already.