Something that might be worthwhile to consider is the fact that someone who wants to make a change, only needs to look at a small program instead of a large pro

Something that might be worthwhile to consider is the fact that someone who wants to make a change, only needs to look at a small program instead of a large program. In the large program case, the programmer feels like they can cross-cut it, install some duplication, and yes: get their change done faster, but at a cost of making the program bigger. But in the small-program case, you only pay the cost of learning the codebase when you add a new programmer to it -- something that happens very infrequently. Your program stays small, and you gain all the benefits therein (faster, fewer bugs, and so on).