This isn't an uncommon situation really.
We all have areas of expertise at which we excel, but even in those areas some tasks completely elude our understanding or ability to cope and comprehend.
It's only natural when one is faced with his own shortcomings to withdraw behind the chimera of authority and bluntly say 'Because I said so!'.
It happens to parents all the time as many of us know, but it shouldn't occur between adults.
If I went to say, a seminar on the nature of the electrical contracting business, I'd probably feel cheated if a participant was stifled for wanting to discuss the paradigm of using palm pilots in the field to log parts, employee hours and customer requests when it was obviously a new and different way of doing business, just because the organizers of the seminar said it wasn't on the agenda.
This is not forward thinking.
I want to see and hear all the discussion anybody brings to the table. This how we move forward. This is how we will eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels and this is how we become better engineers of sound and life in general.
Having said that, I'm thinking of designing a new microphone and calling it the BB57. I'm gonna start with a toilet paper roll and some cellophane...