I can only admit my ignorance...
When I was programming, I was forced to write my own sort routine once. Later, a "binary sort" subroutine was made available in the linklib I could call from my Fortran programs. I always thought that was the latest and greatest, I had no idea there were other types of sorts available.
When I learned how binary sorts worked, I remember telling myself "Damn, that's really clever. What will they think up next?"