I did that once when I was a kid. I was testing the hypothesis that it would still spin, and therefore save time. My hypothesis was wrong, and it just punched the giant hole in the fence.

Like you said, the people that we read about today were generational talents, but they also had the advantage of living in a world where fairly simple observations could be considered new discoveries. We've discovered so much since then, and know so much about the world, that it takes something quite elaborate to be groundbreaking now.