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if it weren't for sondheim, i probably wouldn't be remotely interested in broadway...

Every time this place gets "fixed" more things get broken. Its an inevitable pattern.

Carrillio only used tunings based on the division of the whole step. No equal-temperaments outside of those based on the whole tone scale (18tET, 24tET, 30tET, 36tET, 42tET, 48tET, 54tET, 60tET, 66tET, 72tET, 78tET, 84tET, 90tET, 96tET, etc., etc., etc.). I think you may be confusing thirteenth-tones (78tET) with 13tET (thirteen divisions of the octave) As someone that explores alternate temperaments almost exclusively, I can assure you that it is certainly not a waste of time, and it's certainly not pointless. Again, as someone who deals with microtones constantly, I can assure you that it is more than possible for instruments to play outside of 12tET. Not just strings. I don't know Carrillio's string quartet, but the only works of his that I've heard were in 96tET (sixteenth-tones). I also wrote a clarinet piece that uses microtones. It uses a 31-tone Just intonation, actually. I've also written a bassoon and cello duo in which the bassoon plays a 27-tone "interval-cycle-based" tuning (kinda like Pythagorean, or Meantone) against the cello's 18tET. An orchestral piece that uses quarter-tones in the winds, strings, and brass, 15tET in the guitar, and 21 1/4tET in the electric organ (which is, obviously, not as big of a deal as the others). Plus many other microtonal works (string quartet, tuba quartet, timpani quartet, guitar trio, guitar solo, whatever else I've written...), which have been played. So trust me, I know from experience that this all is possible!