Does the Great Man approach to history still have use?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”
Isaac Newton

It's not clear where the dividing line is.  The great man theory seems to propose that the alleged great men are ones of a few who could have played the role that they did, whether due to genetics or environment or temperament.  But it's not clear whether it's men possessing the right stuff are rare, or that rather there are rare opportunities to play such roles and given nature, the supply of people with the right stuff is plentiful, it's the rarity of such roles that produces the effect that these men are in any sense exceptional.

This why only a handful of modern professional historians still subscribe to this rubbish. Hero worship isn’t always a bad thing (although always a childish one), but as a theory of history, it’s been pretty well done away with by the advent of actual social sciences.

Boru