This was a pretty interesting post, thanks Pope. I'll address a couple of your questions.
Why would someone bother putting in bolts after they've top roped something? Well, even if you've top roped a route, it feels different to lead it, that's one thing. The other is that when done right, what's left behind is a route that can offer a challenging onsite or redpoint to others, by which I mean other people can walk up and have that experience you love, just minus the "find the gear bit" if it's an otherwise unprotectable face. Finding the rests, working out sequences, moving up, backing down to a rest to recover, heading back out, it's still an engaging chess game even without a gear placement on the route. You're right, you can't have that if you've top roped a route beforehand, but others can. I don't know why others put up routes this way, because its a hell of a lot of hard work. I can tell you about why I do it sometimes.
I have a private climbing area that is just full of examples. The routes often exist as top ropes for awhile, a bunch of us discuss whether its worth setting up as a lead route, bolt location often happens by group conversation, taking into account things like where are the reasonable stances, what will you hit, and how to maintain an engaging route that merits repeat ascents yet someone can come up and onsight. Frankly, I think the first ascent process on this sort of thing is really fuzzy: who's the FA? The person who conceived of the line? The person who cleaned off anything loose? The person who first top roped it? The person who put in the bolts (often involves several people), the first person to redpoint it? It's all kind of silly and unimportant to me, because you're right, compared to walking up to a blank slate with no knowledge of what's there and climbing that unknown line successfully, the process I described is just playing around, no big deal. Out in Tenino anyway, I think the first climb of a route that has any significance is the first time (well, every time actually) someone walks up cold and onsights a route, and that always impresses the hell out of me.
The sort of climb you describe is analogous to a flash of artistic genius, a peak moment when skill, imagination, doubt, and experience combine for a truly memorable event. Its damned awesome to experience, no argument about that.
A sport route done well is something different, is an exercise in craftsmanship. Craft usually gets dissed by artists, but mastery and creation are present as well. The making of something durable and solid that others can appreciate for their own use is a different sort of reward. You've tried to explain it away as about ego and getting your name in the book, because you're viewing it from an artist's bias, which is a more selfish thing (note, it's okay to be selfish sometimes, I'm being descriptive not dismissive). Therefore, you think the FA on a sport route must be engaged in some pursuit of selfish pleasure, fame and glory, or whatever. You should consider that perhaps many are merely in pursuit of an interesting thing done well, they're craftsmen. Yeah, I know we can cherry pick some obvious contradictions to my hypothesis, but if I'm wrong, why are so many sport first ascensionists so damn shy? Where are they boasting about their glorious achievements? Guidebooks of yore were much more upfront about who did the FA, the brilliant artist wants full credit for their work of genius. Nowadays you're lucky to find a list in the back of the book, a move I believe was done to "diminish" ego as a motivation. It's kind of a pity too, because as in any craft, not all craftspeople are equal and some build inferior work. That is true of sport routes too, and with a little experience with workmanship, knowing who put up a route can tell you a bit about what to expect or watch out for.
Oh, and you had another question for the old farts about red, pink, and brown points. I'm sure you are fully cognizant of those distinctions, but I'll perform as invoked. Red we know is the climbing of a route without weighting the protection. Pink has been discarded by the elite as a designation these days, but it meant that all the draws were pre-installed on the bolts or the gear pre-placed, so all you had to do was clip your rope through the biner. I think it was a good bit of honesty about one's ascent, because if you're climbing at your limit, and a route is really hard for you, its definitely easier to just clip the draw or piece rather than place it yourself. People assert that the hardest routes today are much too hard today to clip the draw to the bolt and now call it a red point as well, but I think it just dumbs down the definition. Brown point is a derogatory term for just getting up a route by any means necessary, pulling gear, hanging, and generally pitching a fit. Used in a sentence, you would say, "I saw Ivan out at Beacon today and he made an ugly ugly brown point on Blownout."
great post off...Pope's point really boils down to JB's and that is if enough bolting occurs, you will remove opportunities for an onsight ground up lead protected with gear...what you described as a, pause for effect, "a flash of artistic genius, a peak moment when skill, imagination, doubt, and experience combine for a truly memorable event."
One perfect example is B-Y...there is a corresponding route near there that JB had started ground up, but hadn't finished, that Kauk finished by bolting it on rappel...footage of the route is spectacular, but, in the final analysis, its just another 13+ sport route and pretty rock, when, it could have been the B-Y of this generation...
I feel that pope has very very valid points, despite being a flaming/degrading asshole about presenting them...
there needs to be room for both sets of thought...honestly...
