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I consider rigorous mathemeticians, like the ones who wasted their lives figuring out how to eliminate the use of infintesimals, either obsessive compulsive, or so devoid of cleverness that they know this is the only way for them to contribute anything.

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"Eliminating the use of infinitesimals" is an amazingly bad example to argue this point (the OCD part of which is likely spot on). It reveals your thorough ignorance of the rigorous mathematical community.

The notion of infinitesimal has been replaced by a rigorous notion, in more than one way. Some have been useful, others not so useful. One version is that an infinitesimal can be considered a compact operator on an infinite dimensional Hilbert space, and this interpretation is currently shedding some light on possible ways to unify quantum physics with gravity. Google "Noncommutative geometry" if you would like to know more. In any event, without this notion, our understanding of quantum mechanics would be not nearly what it is today.

There are people who need these techniques, to do real jobs, that may be boring and tedious to you, but nonetheless provide things like nuclear power to homes every day. To invent and develop techniques along these lines requires not only intelligence, cleverness, etc., but it also requires PATIENCE.

It is apparent to me that you lack this essential quality David, which is why your elementary school math contest genius has matured into a lazy old man's genius at rationalizing why you don't contribute to the body of academic knowledge in a nontrivial way. The reason why I make this assessment so readily is that I too was an elementary math whiz, and as I got older I saw more and more people "fall off the boat," simply because they could not study a problem that required sustained attention over weeks, months, years, etc. These folks had every skill but patience. Put them on Jeopardy, and they will shine. Ask them to do something real, to answer a question that no one has an answer to, whose answer may take hundreds of pages, and they say "I could, but I don't feel like it."

Although, I agree, it is easier to look at others and say "I could do that, but it is beneath me" than it is to admit that you are incapable of doing it. Which brings me to my second point, which is a response to your question in the earlier thread: the reason why most people don't understand simple Bayes arguments, etc. is that they don't have the patience to really understand the argument. Perhaps their emotional investment in being right is blocking their patience, whatever. You apparently were blessed with the ability to quickly grasp these concepts, which is an exceedingly rare trait among human beings. Patience is as well.