Do you think it is better to be under the tutelage of a Great LV teacher, or to come across a Beyond Great LV skill that you have to figure out yourself?
Logically, one would think the first is much better, but it seems that Jinyong characters of the latter almost always turn out to be much stronger.
Looked how strong the wudang swordmens were despite having learnt from Z3F for decades. ZZR with few months of 9YZJ were almost on their LV.
Looked how strong Wu brothers and Guo Fu turned out post 16 years. By then, they have been training under GJ for 30+ years and still sucks. Okay, assuming that they are THAT dumb. What about Yelu Qi? He was about on par with YG early on and also talented, still can't beat Huo Du despite learning XL18Z from GJ for 20 years? Really?
If YG had stayed by GJ side on Taohua island, he may turned out to be Yelu Qi LV.
If you consider guys like Yideng disciples, who have the chance to train under a Great LV teacher for decades... shouldn't they be much stronger than they are?
Instead, the above would get thrash by people who come across a Great+ LV manual, like Duan Yu, You Tanzhi, ZWJ, etc...
It seems that diligently training hard for years (脚踏实地) under a Great LV teacher is pretty useless. You won't even attain 20% of your teacher LV. Better to strive it out on your own.