Also, it's one thing to say that with modern techniques and design that flint flakes work for the purpose intended, it's quite another to say flint flakes as they would have been made in the neolithic can be used in specific ways not necessarily by design, and then collect and write up all the findings in an academically rigorous way.

There's plenty of research on things that "everyone knows" which turn out to be not true, so validating these ideas is still worthwhile science.