It is only by exploring what the establishment gains from holding on to certain facile notions that you can figure out what it will take to transform the status quo. Large categories are at once comfortable and awe-inspiring. Inertia is simple historical persistence. People are by nature pretty stubborn and do not relinquish old notions even after reality stops supporting them. The very question presupposes that measuring the performance of the market is a simple thing, when in fact the abundance of indices would suggest that measuring the market is actually a pretty difficult and uncertain endeavor.
Ideas can gain the same kind of brand equity.
If you accept that somehow the market as a whole is measurable, things become a little less scary. Suddenly you do not have to deal with the random churning to and fro because there are people who through some dark art can actually tell you what is going to happen next. Just as relative and quantum physics put a stop to this in science, the sheer size of the market of individual stocks will eventually overcome similar notions about the stock market. People want to believe in the stock market and the technology sector because these are discreet things with defined boundaries which, once identified, can be measured and understood through technical arts. Broderbund develops consumer software, whereas Intel manufactures specialized semiconductors, Compaq produces computer and network equipment, and Oracle creates enterprise software that is used by businesses, not consumers.