Insomnia is Great

Yawning Bread, in describing a concert experience not too long ago, posits that Singapore is not yet a great city, at least in part because it is not a sleepless city.
His analysis of why most of the city still closes shop not too late at night and goes to sleep observing a natural, nocturnal schedule, is detailed and convincing. But the link between insomnia and greatness I fail to see very clearly.
Certainly "sleepless" suggests a restless and vibrant energy which could drive the city to achieve greatness, and the perpetual, unending bustle of a truly sleepless city can be in itself an attractive propsect, especially for Chinese so enamored of 热闹. Maybe many of the cities that people would commonly agree to call "great"---London, New York, Tokyo---do indeed have fairly lively cityscapes at any hour of their day.
But why should a city which went to sleep punctually at midnight every day and woke up again with the same energy, or rejuvenated, six or seven hours later, necessarily not be able to achieve "greatness"? Great cities in the past---Amsterdam in the sixteenth century, Cordoba in the twelfth or Alexandria at the turn of the last millenium, for example---were not always sleepless, although some---such as Kaifeng during the Song Dynasty---were.
The link is only clear if, as Yawning Bread seems to have done, it is included as part of the definition of "great" in the first place. What is the basis for this definition? It may be inconvenient for late-night discussions and conversation that public space shrinks so much in the wee hours, but is it not really just that: an incidental inconvenience, and not a fundamental flaw?
Yawning Bread's other yardstick for greatness, I agree with much more, and quote below:

A lot must come from cultural vibrancy, intellectual curiosity and an openness to things new, sometimes to the point of defying convention. The world has to be represented in the city: Different cultures, food, music and ideas from the far corners of the globe, yet in a place with a memory of a past -- a past that is not only respected, but also incessantly questioned. And all these must be out there on the street and in the public square ...

Maybe his point was that such vibrancy is hampered by the fact that the city goes to sleep every day. But really it is only the expression of the vibrancy that is a little muted for part of the day. Compared to the existence of such a beating, living heart in the first place, the city's sleeping habits, or lack thereof, are a completely trivial factor in its "greatness".