This also highlights another effect: imagine you would have stuck around, and not have bundled access to all required papers because, as you said, it's outside of your main department (which also, obviously, encourages that expertise stays in its own little silos) . You'd have to be selective with which articles you give a try. And which ones will that be? In this age if Google Scholar, more often than not the ones with a lot of citations already, I bet.

So the already existing effect of people sticking to the commonly accepted truth is amplified. But science works at the edge of our knowledge, where what is already known breaks down and different and/or less commonly known ideas and solutions are needed.