I totally agree on the part in Bold. I totally disagree on the part in italics. Obviously we're speculating but I don't get the vibe that he necessarily thinks he's smarter than everyone else. That mentality (at least to me) is reactionary: "Oh, everyone things we should do A? Well, I'm going to do B!" where as I get the feeling that Holmes just makes his decision based on what he thinks and doesn't care if everyone else like it's or not.
Now, you could argue that if everyone else is saying: "Don't go in the water, there's a hungry alligator there" then maybe you should at least investigate a bit before going swimming, but I don't see Holmes has deliberately going against the grain to show how smart he is.