Always enjoy your musings Steve and amongst several excellent points you make is one that I've not really considered much over the decades.
It is, as you put it, the aspect of us 'hauling ourselves up to be a big club'.
And you're right, it does make us unique in Scottish Football.
Why are we not still a Clyde or a Dumbarton, we were toe-to-toe with them in the 50s but they, like your Stenhousemuirs & Albion Rovers, never quite reached titles nor Europe.

And, as you say, and what makes it even more historic, it was us, the people, not the wealthy, who acheived it.