I agree with most of what you said, except that perhaps the distribution is a little more complex than bimodal.
Perhaps it's multi-modal, with various discernible leaps in performance. (There's a big gap between "Green", "Good" and "Rock Star", so I think that there's at least 3)
I think there's also an in-between for Green and Good, which is Effective... There are a lot of tasks that don't need an elegant solution, only a working one. If your solutions are broken up pretty well, where a given piece can be updated or rewritten without having to refactor everything, it makes that easier, and makes a project work better with multiple developers of varying skill.
True. My contention is that learning happens in steps, it's not linear. This is especially true in programming. So rather than a smooth curve of talent, there are plateaus that people reach.
I would love to see data on this. Who knows, I might be wrong. (Wouldn't be the first time - even today)
Perhaps it's multi-modal, with various discernible leaps in performance. (There's a big gap between "Green", "Good" and "Rock Star", so I think that there's at least 3)