Note that the ancient Greeks studied parabolas in detail. They were consider the next most nice shape after circles (essentially tied with the other conic sections, ellipses and hyperbolas). So your third suggestion doesn’t hold water. I suspect that Constanza’s remark above is closer to the truth; there’s a fair bit of hindsight bias in seeing the impetus theory as obviously incorrect.
Note that the ancient Greeks studied parabolas in detail. They were consider the next most nice shape after circles (essentially tied with the other conic sections, ellipses and hyperbolas). So your third suggestion doesn’t hold water. I suspect that Constanza’s remark above is closer to the truth; there’s a fair bit of hindsight bias in seeing the impetus theory as obviously incorrect.