Those exploratory "side quests" in industry are how we got the transistor, the liquid crystal display, Shannon's information theory, the laser and practical photovoltaic cells, among many other foundational technologies upon which we rely today.
All display technology past CRTs has been a mistake. The vectrex in the 1980s had better refresh rates, color fidelity, beautiful phosphor glow, etc - and we abandoned it for a horrible pixel based future we are now in. We should return to vectors and lasers.