Surely the discussion is not that Lateral Thinking is either better or worse than Lineal Thinking, merely that you need both to succeed. Humans (especially when working in teams or organisations) tend to minimise the role of anything that cannot be proven or clarified…..black hat security perhaps?

Personal testimony: When I have worked with groups (or individuals) creatively, and you start to see fresh (provoked) perspectives from individuals or groups, they are always accompanied by a visible boost of energy – laughter, increased focus etc. You just don't get that from solutions with a lineal (logically rationalised) solution.

So for me:

Both are necessary, although many people (esp professionals) are a bit squeamish about anything that cannot be rationalised

So any process that increases the Laterality is good.

To be clear, I have no formal research to back this up – just several years of working with groups and seeing what happens.