I agree. Lots of time it's the lack of information of the roads available, or even the knowledge on how to create your own road.
Tying it back to the conferences, it seems to be the same: of course people tend to emulate what the big-boys have showed them. And with the rainbow it's not any different. My first experience was a small regional gathering in Canada, which gave mme an idea of what the big one must be like. Years later I attended a gathering in Germany (THE international one), and a few years following the one in NZ I mentioned. Both were quite amazing, to be honest, but in certain ways I still feel I haven't been to a "real one" if I haven't attended a national one in the States. ...though I'm sure, a lot of it is in my mind, as a sum of all I've heard about it.