The valuable part of guidebooks

A guidebook will always be valuable for the creative work.

Guidebooks have been valuable for for the data aggregation. This is because the data aggregation was _hard_. This has let SSORDs look like they're advangeous. It also put pressure on authors to "climb every route listed in a guidebook". Noble, admirable, and a spectacular amount of work that creates stand-out pieces. What about the climber who has a vision, but not the time? We spend so much time competing over the data that authors rarely get to enjoy the creative parts. The community settles for "data" and SSORDs look like compelling options.