Definitely disagreed. Most styles are rooted in NYC tradition, but the point is to have your own collection of styles, not to belong to one. ^See above. Ain't no one out there with Creds letter style, and ain't no one ever misses a Cred freight when it rolls by. The big idea is...you don't even have to read the name to know its Creds, and that's awesome. Sure, Creds uses arrows (for example), but I really wouldn't say that therefore his style falls within some sort of "arrow-using" collection. In fact, I think that CT is home to one of the most diverse selections of style in the nation, very few of which belong to the same "collection" as one another. The individual innovation that came out of here during the 90s and onward was pretty unparalleled.
Oh yeah, and gaining inspiration from someone else's style to create your own thing definitely counts as invention. That's granted that it actually is different, and not just taken. Thomas Edison didn't invent light, but he definitely used it in inventing the lightbulb.