This is why I don't adopt best practices. When something gets to that point, it is already being replaced by some new and innovative method.
Imagine if Apple had adopted the best practices for making usable phone interfaces... then we would have an iPhone that looked like a Blackberry.
This warning applies to everything really. Our current President Bush for example (and I'm being kind).
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Hi Thomas,
IMO, from your Apple iPhone example then certainly yes, adopting best practice wouldn't have delivered the iPhone user experience we now enjoy.
I see this as being at one end of the spectrum, where Apple is by its very nature an innovative company, always looking for new ways to engage users and progress UI.
Somewhere over the other end are businesses who, by adopting best practice's in their marketing efforts or UX, for example, can make significant improvements in adoption/conversion or whichever metric they are trying to improve.
For these businesses to suddenly become innovators might actually be too much for their customer base and target customers.
From our perspective, depending on where our clients are on this spectrum, drives whether we should be working with them to deliver best practice or for us to help them innovate in their marketplace.
From being a reader of your blog I can see that you are very much at the 'innovator' end, hence why adopting best practices isn't for you, something which I fully respect.