I think it takes more than IQ to make a profound discovery (c.f. the remark about talent lost to sweatshops), but that doesn't make the unlucky person not a genius. Just an unrealized one.
Not sure if we actually have a test for creativity, but it seems like some people have a very good ability to see what is useful and where to put their effort. And some people with very good IQ scores are really bad at it. They can solve math equations really well, but when it comes to discovering new useful math they are completely lost since they don't have the creativity to understand what new things are actually interesting.
A key finding is that people are not creative generally but are instead creative relative to their skills.
e.g. if you are not a skilled programmer your programming is very unlikely to be creative except insofar as it relates to a non-programming skill that you have acquired.
This suggests that most creative solutions will come from people who learn many things. You'd expect people with high IQ and conscientiousness (implies being organized and driven) to be the most creative group. This lines up with the best evidence I've found, and anecdotally matched my experiences as an educator and continues to as a software developer.
I think this may also explain your own experiences. The model predicts that a smart person who learns a lot less about a topic than their less smart peer would be less creative thinking the topic.
[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Explorations-Instructional-...