I sort of understand where you're going with the fact that very odd formats usually flame out and don't make money.
I don't know how you define "odd" formats, but there were some that I thought were fairly mainstream and didn't make it.
However, let's look at KRXO and KATT, for example. KOMA when it first hit the air at 1520 was in that boat too. All of these stations, when they first went on the air, were pretty unique and radical formats for their times. Sports radio 640 WWLS was too. Then there's 1049 and their version of sports. All of these stations were stations that served a niche audience, but had a big enough and wealthy enough audience to win.
You're right in the sense that every format was unique when it was first started. I can also agree with you in the sense that there have been some really bad operators trying to do these tried and true mass appeal formats who have failed badly. Classic rock as a radio format is really only about 30 years old. Of course, for every classic rock we have, how many of these new ideas have been failures?
KATT, KOMA and WWLS may have been unique when they first launched, but they've changed a lot, too. I would argue they're much less so today, and that has both its bad and good points. KATT's active rock format was an evolution, and, unlike a lot of other stations (think Dallas's Q-102 and Kansas City's KY-102), they dumped AOR for active rock in the early 90's. If they hadn't, they would've been squeezed out of the format by KRXO and that short-lived experiment known as 95X a few years later. CHR/Top-40 has changed a lot since it was first launched as a format, and sports talk has evolved to include a lot more "guy talk" than it was when 640 flipped to sports from country in the mid-to-late 80's. Oldies has evolved, too. I hear a lot of complaints that you can't find 60's oldies on the radio today let alone oldies from the pre-Beatles era. These formats may have been radical when they first launched, but the approach has changed, and they're not really the same as they were. Usually, I hear these evolutions are too cookie cutter, but you can't have it both ways. It can't be cookie cutter yet original. If the original approach worked better and was more popular, it would still be going strong.
That's what is wrong with today's radio. No on is even willing to try something a little "out there". I'm not talking Ferris O'brien type of "out there" but at least something that is a little further out than 4 formats would be handy, and most likely PROFITABLE.
It's easy to say people should try something "out there" when it's someone else's money. As much as I'd like to think of myself as a creative and innovative person, I can't say with a straight face that I'd try to find the next great thing if I had millions tied up in a radio station. I'd want to at least have a chance at getting my money back. If you can come up with a new and different format, I hope you can find someone who'll run with it and make it successful.