I agree with your analysis, I did notice that not many groups in the US were doing what looked like interesting new methods&#x2F;theory, more &#x27;cashing in&#x27; on existing code in a fairly short term way. There are people like Louie and Vanderbilt, though. I did my DFT methods PhD in a materials department group, full of Italian&#x2F;German&#x2F;English physicists, anyway :)