The business of competitive people versus noncompetitive people is interesting. I don’t compete with or care about competing with other designers because they aren’t the audience. It seems in real life, happy clients are often happy with a lot less in terms of sketch quality and “innovation” than competitive designers are, and they can’t necessarily tell the difference between a C+ and an A- sketch to begin with. Clients can’t draw a BOX most of the time, and they are thrilled by almost any level of sketch. Napkin sketches and diagrams often work. And if personal experience is any guide, clients’ actions say they are much more interested in incremental progress and maintenance than they are in innovation, which means it usually isn’t worth spending a lot of time on far-out ideas - most of the time. So those two arms-race areas that I think competitive people get all up in arms about - perfect images, newness/killerapps/innovation - and which can be a source of pointless endless endlessness for everyone else, are probably a lot less important than many people think they are.