Whither the Great Designers?

They are all listening to MP3 files!

Maybe I'll catch some heat for this because he's been a commercial success and not just a tweaky designer, but what about Bob Carver in the listing of great designers.
The Phase linear 400, 700, Carver amazings and tube pres and amps, and Sunfire with the heat-less amps have shown that he is probably the most talented overall designer out there. Who else has had such a long and diverse record of interesting products?
Gayle Sanders? Recent shots have shown he's got more gray than me (yea), and he has to be celebrated for bringing fine technology to the market at reasonable prices.

So - to respond to your question - where is the next crop coming from? Hmmm - maybe Eldartford's on to something re: China, but you've got a point that there doesn't seem to be any young whipper-snapper coming to mind just yet.

Would these qualify?

Alex Peychel (APL), John Tucker (Exemplar), Dan Wright (Modwright), Ric Schultz, Henry Ho (H20), Josh Stippich(Electronluv), Terry Cain, Ron Welborne, George Wright, Chris Brady (Teres), Mike Sanders (Quicksilver, Jim Wang (Harmonic Technology), Emmanuel Go (First Sound), Duevel...and a number of others whose names I fail to recall at this moment.

Only time will tell which of these names are mentioned alongside the CJ's & Paul Klipsch's of the audio world, but I think there is a lot of startling innovation happening right here.

Keith Herron is certainly making a strong case for himself. He has a ways to go, but he's off to a great start.

Ralph Karsten of Atma-sphere
Lloyd Walker of Walker Audio
Mick Maloney of Supratek
Harry Weisfeld of VPI

These gentlemen all get my vote as world class designers with a lot of great ideas and future products yet to be seen.