What really is Reinventing The Wheel?

What really is Reinventing the Wheel? I mean, it's supposed to be about techs being re-researched on RTS games here on TV Tropes, but the idiom it's using means "To reinvent the wheel is to duplicate a basic method that has already previously been created or optimized by others" according to The Other Wiki? I mean, the idiom could be applied as refining an existing invention

What's it really all about though? And why the Reinventing the Wheel trope only has about 4 dozen wicks and 481 inbound links since its inception in 2007?

I've never really heard the phrase "reinvent the wheel" being used to mean refining an existing invention. As your definition shows, it's meant to be used to describe wasting time/effort on trying to recreate something (invention, concept, etc.) that already exists and is already optimized. That said, TV Tropes' Reinventing the Wheel probably has a low wick count because it applies to only a portion of games in a niche genre.

Yeah. The trope's definition seems too narrow in my opinion. Not sure if using the original idiom's meaning would be a magnet of misuse and complaining.