All the talented people that you mentioned were laughing when he proposed reusable rockets, and we all know how it ended.
All I heard was comment of "SpaceX Steamroller" from industry insiders. The companies that could have invested in rocket reusability decided to sit by and do nothing. It's not like it's an impossible physical achievement either.
That anyone proposed resuable rockets before Musk? Use Google. You're naive if you think otherwise.
>at a fraction of the price per launch of whatever existed before.
There's no evidence that these resuable rockets are a "fraction" of the cost to re-launch. In fact, the cost is likely the reason that no one else has done it; it doesn't make economic sense, not because it's impossible.