Yes, that is a common criticism of the industry, because there is the assumption, as you noted, that a commodity is just being run through a pipe and that's all there is to it.
There is significant technology involved at all stages of the value chain for natural gas. The most recent technological innovation that most people know about is through recovery of shale gas from reserves, which has made economical the recovery of vast supplies of gas that were previously assumed to be unrecoverable. That's had a dramatic impact on the North American market, and it looks like it will have a dramatic impact on the global market. That's because of significant technological innovation.