I wrote my MIT senior thesis on the plate tectonics paradigm shift. The geology/geophysics courses I took in the midst of this scientific revolution were the high point of my education. Each lesson was newly written and distributed on mimeograph gopies. We gave the teachers feedback, and the lessons were eventually compiled into the first textbook on plate tectonics.
The resistance to continental draft was not simply stubbornness. Recall that at that time physicists and chemists were only just beginning to learn about radioactivity. Absent radioactivity, there was simply no explanation for the forces required by Wegener's hypothesis. Although Wegener never (to my knowledge) made the point that a very large as-yet-unknown force must exist to account for the continental movements, that is absolutely what his observations implied. (He did propose a mechanism, but it was readily shown to be inadequate by several orders of magnitude.)
In Wegener's time the deep seafloor was a tabula rasa; so little was known about it, one could project any fanasty one wished upon it. It was only with the invention of sonar, and its perfection during WWII, that real data began pouring in. Mid-ocean ridges and ultra-deep trenches were revealed. This, and earthquake and vocanic partners, allowed the delineation of the tectonic plates. Wegener had never suspected seafloor draft!
IMHO, the revelations of meteorite (intra- or extra-Solar System) cannot compare with the grand panorama of Plate Tectonics.