Those "great executives" that built SWN to what it is today had the benefit of commodity prices that were 4x higher than what we have today and an excellent idea/observation by a geologist who is rumored to have been rewarded for his efforts with a $100,000 bonus. Think of all the notoriety and wealth gained by those "great executives" as the person who is primarily responsible for the success of the company was handed a paltry $100,000 and subsequently walked himself out the door.
And the vision that SWN can only grow by leasing hundreds of thousands of acres of unproven resources in an effort to duplicate the Fayetteville Shale was carryover from those "great executives" who still called a lot of the the shots from the boardroom, post-retirement. They are just as much a reason for the lack of growth and downfall over the last five year period as they are for the gains in the period 10 years prior.