All the rounded intelligent people I know and knew were habitual cheaters, loopholers, red tape jumpers, etc. They broke the rules and did great or used their talent to coast comfortably.

Absolutely. When you learn in your mid-20s that your heroes (Bruce Lee, Michael Jordan, Mark Hunt, etc.) used steroids just like all the rest of the professional athletes, you find that only the cheaters reach the pinnacle. Failure to cheat, means failure to win. You can win without cheating, but you'll hit the top 10% but never the top 1%. That's what I've found from all these case studies in sports, academia, business, etc.. At the same time, those who aren't really cheaters, find some sort of shortcut and then win that way. This only works for the early rush after which the rewards become monetarily average.

I think people confused gifted with genius level intellect. I find both vastly different. I mean, I had to study or homework outside of school 20min/day on average. Genius level can pretty much wing it or not study at all. It also depends on learning capabilities. Even with the public school system, I can never learn stuff verbally compared to how fast I learn and memorize from written and visual forms of the same information. College was easier than HS because at that point, your brain has matured and the coursework is so small compared to the top public HS that the only thing holding you back is the attendance score and homework score which you could complete in 20mins per 3 credit hour course and that would be your study session itself. However, that all pales in comparison to people who are the same intelligence as I am who are able to learn from the lecture verbally and then memorize 70% of what is said and use that as a study session, finish homework and then ace the exams 3.0+ GPA.