Why can they assess the risk and the probable benefits of trying out another innovation and can contain the risk? Because they can do that of almost anything. They are surviving investors. Trying out another innovation is just another investment, not unlike trying out another stock, another bond, another estate.

Why can the computer security people not do the same? Because they are debuggers, not investors.

I agree with this point, but I think it could be said to have as much or more to do with the qualities of the field, as the qualities of people in the field.

Finance and trading are extremely quantifiable fields. An increase in speed of execution can fairly accurately be assigned a dollar value in ways that a field like compute security can't.

Reasoning about the payoff of switching to another technology becomes harder. Even after a technology has been successfully adopted, it's hard to say what the payoffs were! A political climate, where ideas are more assailable, arises, and people huddle under the shelter of what's commonly accepted. "Quant" people might do the same, if they were in that type of climate.

In finance, you hear a lot more of "Don't believe me? Fine. The results will speak for themselves."