I think the "prior art" argument is not at all an argument in favor of a decision:
- The context in which the prior art decision was made was almost certainly different, with different assumptions, different problems to solve, and different priorities.
- The prior art decision was made according to a different set of rules. There's no telling what standards of review the original authors were following when making the decision.
- The prior art decision was made a while ago and all lessons learned since then related to that decision will be lost.
For all of these reasons, when I see any "prior art" argument, what I understand is this: "I didn't make a decision here, so I'm going to take an existing decision and hope that it won't backfire".
Simply taking an existing decision that may be irrelevant or inappropriate for the use case at hand is not at all an acceptable means of coming up with solutions to practical problems.
EDIT:
Moreover, how famous the prior art is has no baring on its validity. There are examples of very famous mistakes and their fame doesn't make them any less of a mistake.