Seems like in the article and the comments there are three categories of "master" here: Theoreticians, Mechanics, and Explainers. People who destroy and replace models, people who take models into places we never envisioned, and people who can explain models to others. (These categories work across both fiction, non-fiction, and science)

I wonder as we learn if we don't naturally move from one of these categories to another. I'd wager it's from explainer to theoretician to mechanic. It'd be interesting to see some research in this area.