Look up Jeff Lenosky's early street trials on cross-country mountain frames. It was a lot of really slow balancing acts and precision work that didn't actually look very cool at all, pulled off on a bike that was in no way designed for the purpose. But eventually he got flowier and flowier and was pretty much the innovator of riding freestyle on mountain bikes. It's called progression. The street mountain bike eventually got redesigned for tricks, and the same thing is already happening with "trickier" track frames like the BMW gangsta. But no, you're right. He was a nut job. Mountain bikes are for the mountain! Track bikes are only for the track! Oh, wait...