Fencing is more a sport than a martial art. It would be like basing your knowledge of roman phalanx warfare on NFL football.

Also, worldbuilding touches all aspects of your story. It touches plot and character as well. If you don't know the culture your character comes from, how can you know what he's really like? You must know your characters on a much deeper level than you would if you just shrugged your way into a cookie cutter fantasy world.

All the truth in the world is held in stories.

I think authors are just realizing there's no real reason to feel limited to a narrow set of genre rules in their writing. There's no reason a mystery novel can't have fantastic elements in it. Similarly, there's no reason why your epic fantasy series can't have elements of a mystery.

...nothing in the world is harder than convincing someone of an unfamiliar truth.

Speculative fiction is where my heart lies. It's what I read growing up, and it's what I read as an adult.

What I'd love more than anything is for Worldbuilders to continue to grow and become entangled in all the different corners of the geek community.