Understanding always trumps simple accuracy, because it defines new mental models which can tested experimentally.
I don't think it's about low-hanging fruit so much as the difference between analytical understanding/talent and deep creative insight.
Science-as-career has become institutionalised and conservative, and slanted more towards the semi-industrialised production of regular publishable refinements and less towards deep insights.
It's correspondingly less likely that a mind like Einstein's would be able to make equivalent contributions today.
I don't think it's about low-hanging fruit so much as the difference between analytical understanding/talent and deep creative insight.
Science-as-career has become institutionalised and conservative, and slanted more towards the semi-industrialised production of regular publishable refinements and less towards deep insights.
It's correspondingly less likely that a mind like Einstein's would be able to make equivalent contributions today.