> This is how I feel about our democratic process.

Oh it's applicable anywhere humans interact in modelled systems. It happens in writing too - some team might be in a creative mindset and write some funny or brilliant work; a subsequent team either accurately recreates the mindset and creates a 'true spiritual successor' to the original work that can develop things like 'where that story would have gone, taken to its natural conclusion' or 're-tell it better' or so forth;

or they can simply mimic the 'formulas' or even just 'copy the original jokes' and 'miss the point'.

I might have a list of these.