One of the commenters in that post wrote this article, which quotes Gill as saying:
“One of the objectives for both [climbing and mathematics] is to achieve an interesting result—ideally an unexpected result—in an elegant fashion, with a smooth flow, using some unexpected simplicity. There is the question of style.”"Elegance" is a weird thing—in the sense of math and logic, it's a matter of being concise and clear; in fashion, it's variable according to the whim of the era. Luckily, there's the question of style.
The thing is, in both math and fashion, there are multiple means to accomplish the same end. There are a bunch of proofs that the sum of the angles of a triangle equals 180 degrees, and there are thousands of ways to cover your feet when you go outside. But people still work on new geometry proofs, and people still design new shoes.
You don't have to come up with a new theorem, and you don't need to develop a new kind of clothing—you can accomplish something that's been done before, if you do it in a new way. Accomplish something that's already been done, but do it in a weird way. It might not be the path to fame and fortune, but it's certainly the path to victory.
