Conversely, if there are any group of people who will be able to develop the same product again without infringing patents, it's the people who wrote the patents in the first place.

Patent violation doesn't have a mens rea component - either you violate the patent by doing exactly what is described in it, or you don't. If you change even one aspect, you're no longer violating the patent. I'm sure the people who wrote the original patented algorithms can easily think of ways to accomplish the same thing that don't violate it.