I agree with the general gist of your opinion with one minor quibble. What you write makes it sound as though Picasso was reactive, failing to compete and setting out to look elsewhere. Everything I've read (and I'll openly admit my forte is not 20th Century) suggests his was a more frenzied, proactive endeavor. I would submit that by the first decade of the 1900s, he couldn't have cared less about the Impressionists or competing with them. We both agree he was driven to new ground; I suppose we just differ in whether the forces that drove him were of external or internal origin, and the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.
I think we are pretty much on the same page.
Mainly Picasso went to the primitives of Africa, deriving their imagery in his quest for new market.
The “New Art” was certainly emerging slowly. I think Pablo made a move to step outside that entire movement in a bold new way. He would have been an “average competitor” and he certainly recognized that.
In 1913 at the Armory Show in NYC and in 1915 at the Panama Pacific Exposition in SF his art was an immediate hit with all the big shots. Course they didn’t know what they were looking at but it became the thing to do.
Maynard Dixon’s art changed too. It became more tonal but with heavy impasto and defined facets of paint. He then simplified, distilling unnecessary imagery to make the compositions more powerful. When he met and married Dorothea Lange in 1920 his art simplified even more.
I guess the point we are making is that all artists attempt to find their own voice and make their own unique statement.
Picasso took a huge leap; others more slowly.