I think one conclusion the cryptographic community took from previous issues is that the best way to get a solid cipher is a group process.
Even highly skilled cryptographers can fail. Ron Rivest designed RC4, and I don't think anyone would claim that Ron Rivest is not a good cryptographer (he's the R of RSA). But RC4 was not good.
What has been done a number of times now and is currently happening with pqcrypto: You ask everyone in the crypto community to come up with proposals. Then you let them try to find weaknesses in each other's proposal. Then you gradually remove the ones that are considered problematic for any reason.
While you can argue whether this process is perfect (I think some people would argue either serpent or twofish should've won the AES competition), it has not produced any major failures.
Even highly skilled cryptographers can fail. Ron Rivest designed RC4, and I don't think anyone would claim that Ron Rivest is not a good cryptographer (he's the R of RSA). But RC4 was not good.
What has been done a number of times now and is currently happening with pqcrypto: You ask everyone in the crypto community to come up with proposals. Then you let them try to find weaknesses in each other's proposal. Then you gradually remove the ones that are considered problematic for any reason.
While you can argue whether this process is perfect (I think some people would argue either serpent or twofish should've won the AES competition), it has not produced any major failures.