> Not pursuing hotness is the new hotness IMHO.

If you are like this, you'll probably like Knuth's "My advice to young people", http://www.webofstories.com/play/17152. The relevant part:

And I think one of the things that I would, that would sort of come first to me is this idea of, don't just believe that because something is trendy, that it's good. I'd probably go the other extreme where if something, if I find too many people adopting a certain idea I'd probably think it's wrong or if, you know, if my work had become too popular I'd probably think I'd have to change.