Bill Bruford is the subject of what looks to be an extensive interview in the first of a three-part series...
The characterization of drummers as a “breed apart and breed below” other instrumentalists is valid, I think, and perpetuated as much within the culture as without. That may have driven some, including myself, to prove we were “real” musicians (defined as those who play pitched instruments) by writing, arranging and recording music under our own names and in my case, I suppose, fulfilling the “scholar-explorer” archetype that you posit, although of course I would not have recognized my activities as such at the time.