> it was one of hundreds of avenues that were explored, and ruled out basically as soon as it was explored.
Sounds like me during a troubleshooting call trying to think of the wildest crap possible based on current available information, even if I sound crazy, sometimes my crazy question hits the nail. Never shun someone for trying to think of any crazy thing, sometimes they hit the nail on the head.
Sure, but give a group too long a leash and they will overindex on a tarpit idea. The reason why conspiracy theories are notorious is not because conspiracies don't exist, it's because they are non-falsifiable, fun to speculate about, and easy to understand so everyone can participate. Viral, in other words. Good leaders should steer away from tarpits (and privately ensure that they were scouted, just in case).
Of course, and I hold back the wilder theories ;) I usually let it rummage through my brain a bit first. I have a "hint" of ADD so my brain can jump all over, but I can get hyper focused on an outage, especially when trying to figure it out involves a bit of brain storming sometimes, and following a methodology to look under every rock.