Opening a field to a diversity of methods takes maturity of the field, a supportive infrastructure, and time. Now, in the wake of our 50th anniversary, we can say the IB field has reached a certain amount of maturity. In this commentary, I provide the backstory to this year's big win for qualitative methods - the 2021 Decade Award - and discuss how there has never been a better time for the power of richness from case studies, ethnographies, and a wide range of other types of qualitative research to surface and contribute meaningfully to IB theory.