I remember a post a while ago by Jim Butcher, in which he pointed out that it wasn't the idea that made a story, but the delivery. Someone took him up in the forum and suggested the collision of two ideas that seemed awful together (lost legion + pokemon) - and he got a book series out of them.

I'm not sure how much difference there would have been if the author had wandered lonely as a cloud and run into a museum followed by a pokemon tournament. Or if they'd asked AI for two terrible ideas. Again, I'm not sure how I feel about this.

I have been thinking this lately rereading Earthsea. The basic idea is such classic fantasy as to be cliché. But Le Guin's delivery is just wonderful. Rich and detailed in a way that could only have been achieved through months or years of patient work