Art Style - A Certain Modus Operandi or Just Unvaried

Should artists stay with the same style of painting/drawing/ etc. or should they explore new styles and techniques and push the boundaries?

How many times have you looked at a painting and you know exactly who painted it. I don't mean a well known painting but a work that you haven't seen before or just vaguely know it but yet you can immediately identify the artist. 

So, should artists stay with what they do best and what sells best or should they stick their neck out and try something totally different? I think they should go for the latter. I understand why many go for the first approach. We all have to live and pay the bills so naturally if one style sells well and gets popular it must be very difficult to turn ones back on it and try a new style. However, I believe many successful artists go for the easy way out and churn similar work as they know it's what the gallery wants and it's what sells. 

But is that not boring? It's like eating the same food week in week out. Or wearing the same black clothes every day like so many "trendy" people. It's a lack of imagination. It's too easy to buy the same jeans, shirts. etc in black so one only has to open the closet and grab the first thing to hand and know they will match! Easy to wash too, no sorting of clothes, light and dark. How many times you get bored reading the same author because you practically know how the story is going to turn out, the author is almost writing to a formula? 

But to get back to artists and their work. Whether it's painting, etching, lithographs etc, why do the same things all the time. I remember at the graphic studio where I studied etching and lithography, there were some students who printed the same black lithos all the time. There were slight variations but ok, yes, one could say their exhibition will have a certain flow and unity. That is a good thing. But there is a difference between unity and repetitiveness. For me, I felt it was more productive and I learnt more by trying different processes. Sometimes it did not work out and sometimes it was a lucky success. But if I had stayed with the same technique, I would not have learnt so much and had so much enjoyment at the same time. 

I think it's more stimulating to try something different, a new technique, explore a new procedure or a new and completely different line of work. It is by investigating different techniques and new approaches that we learn and evolve and our work is richer for that. We don't have to totally change our style but by exploring another way of working can only enrich our life and that will show in the final work. By using our imagination our ideas flow and as a result our work improves. 

What's your opinion, do you agree or not?