Someone on Twitter tried to tell me that “AH mostly cherry picked other companies’ good designs.” 

Incredible. While I agree that AH did republish some great games to bring them to a wider audience, they contributed immeasurably to the hobby with their own designs. They invented hex and counter wargaming, to start with. Combat Results tables. Terrain Effects charts. Hexes for movement. They published Panzerblitz, not as a cherry picking of someone else’s game (Panzerblitz  had never been published before other than as a loose idea), but because SPI couldn’t do it. AH invented Area Impulse games. They invented CDGs. Squad Leader. Third Reich- had anyone ever done a grand strategic game before? Up Front! Up Front, the greatest wargame ever made, fer chrissakes! The General magazine. That’s just off the top of my head. As Volko Runke recently pointed out, AH created whole categories of wargames with their innovations. So I’m not buying that they mostly cherry picked other companies good designs. They led, they innovated. If they also brought some Jedko and Battline games to a larger audience, great. Just remember, there would be no Jedko and Battleline without Avalon Hill.