Those are great questions, and I've wondered about it myself.

In movies for example, teams form for projects that last in total a couple of years, but for individuals, their work might just be a couple of months. I've often wished programming worked like that, at least commercial projects. I know a lot of programmers I'd like to try working with. But we don't do it that way.

Also, there is a sense of history in most of those activities that isn't present here. A young basketball player can tell you about all his role models, going back many generations. I've seen it (thinking of Iman Schumpert on the Knicks).

They listen to each others' music, eat each others' food, I'm sure there's a lot of pettiness to the discourse, but in software, it's not uncommon for people to compete with products they've never even tried. I can see that in competitive products!

I think it will eventually get better. It is getting better over time. When I was starting the idea of an individual creating software was VERY radical, and there wasn't much support for it. Until I came to Calif, and met other people who believed in the idea. Nowadays, they make movies about people doing that. I would have told you 30 years ago that day would come, and people really didn't believe it. Esp programmers. :-)

So it is getting better. I just wish it would get there faster.