> a lot of good slight of hand also falls into the category of the method being amazing.
That's true but when slight of hand is amazing it's usually amazing in a different way than the OP's method. At the highest conceptual level, the "secret method" of most sleight of hand can be boiled down to "You hid something in your hand." At least to other magicians, uniquely good sleight of hand is amazing due to the insane level of skill and years of rigorous practice required to "hide something in your hand" in a way that appears impossible.
While developing the OP's method did require amazing effort and serious engineering skill, someone else could then perform with that method without the same unique level of technical skill.
> At the highest conceptual level, the "secret method" of most sleight of hand can be boiled down to "You hid something in your hand."
I'm not sure if I agree with that. There are certainly some clever and skillful methods for how an item is literally stored and retrieved, but what's more interesting and impressive to me is the overall choreography. The way all the moves are sequenced and how one move provides misdirection for another move is where the magic happens.
> what's more interesting and impressive to me is the overall choreography.
Yes, I agree. You've described appreciating a magical performance like a magician would appreciate the work of another magician. The general public usually focuses on what they perceive as the "trick" part of creating the illusion (such as an object hidden in the hand they are unaware of). Advanced magical skill involves understanding and then perfecting the often subtle surrounding elements that make the effect so deceptive.
In the past I've taught sleight of hand magic to relatively novice students and in the beginning they are always puzzled that even when they've learned "the move", a spectator will often just say "it's in your other hand." Yet when I perform the exact same move to similar spectators it never even occurs to anyone that something might be in the other hand. The difference is a dozen subtle things from where my eyes are looking, to the position of my body, to the pacing of my speech. I had to learn these techniques from my mentors and then rigorously practice them until perfected. In a lot of sleight of hand magic, any "move" by itself is not all that deceptive. The context and choreography around the move are what elevate the performance to what seems like real magic.
That's true but when slight of hand is amazing it's usually amazing in a different way than the OP's method. At the highest conceptual level, the "secret method" of most sleight of hand can be boiled down to "You hid something in your hand." At least to other magicians, uniquely good sleight of hand is amazing due to the insane level of skill and years of rigorous practice required to "hide something in your hand" in a way that appears impossible.
While developing the OP's method did require amazing effort and serious engineering skill, someone else could then perform with that method without the same unique level of technical skill.