The downside of original thinking

Alan Kay's reflections on the history of Smalltalk (referred to in an earlier post about design) has this to say about the process of innovation:
New ideas go through stages of acceptance, both from within and without. From within, the sequence moves from "barely seeing" a pattern several times, then noting it but not perceiving its "cosmic" significance, then using it operationally in several areas, then comes a "grand rotation" in which the pattern becomes the center of a new way of thinking, and finally, it turns into the same kind of inflexible religion that it originally broke away from.
Perhaps seing this cycle is the reason why some people accuse XP evangelists of peddling an inflexible religion or purist cult? (Deeply ironic given that most XP coaches offer the advice to start with what has worked for other people - e.g. as described in the Pink or Purple XP books - and then to customise the process to make it work for you.)
Reflection: have you seen other people turn innovative ideas into an inflexible religion? have you done it yourself? what kind of feedback does it take to break out of rigid patterns of thought or behaviour?