> He could have delegated the design of the first font for his TeX system to a professional type designer.
Knuth started work on TeX's fonts about the same time that he began work on TeX and Metafont (1977-78). CM was largely completed by about 1984-86. He was a computer science professor. I'm not aware of any funding he procured to develop TeX. You're saying he had the financial resources to hire a professional type designer for fonts for an academic publishing system of unknown future?
Knuth started work on TeX's fonts about the same time that he began work on TeX and Metafont (1977-78). CM was largely completed by about 1984-86. He was a computer science professor. I'm not aware of any funding he procured to develop TeX. You're saying he had the financial resources to hire a professional type designer for fonts for an academic publishing system of unknown future?