[turtledragonfly]

Speaking as someone who has made their own game engine for their indie game: it really depends on the game, and on the developer's personality and goals. I think you're probably right for the majority of cases, since the majority of games people want to make are reasonably well-served by general-purpose game engines.

But part of the thing that attracted me to the game I'm making is that it would be hard to make in a standard cookie-cutter way. The novelty of the systems involved is part of the appeal, both to me and (ideally) to my customers. If/when I get some of those (: