This is a rather idealistic approach to something which has real-world constraints: Despite our misinformed bathtub-curve view of the abilities of the software

This is a rather idealistic approach to something which has real-world constraints: Despite our misinformed bathtub-curve view of the abilities of the software development community, the world is absolutely teeming with "average programmers", not superstars. It is in your best interests not to shut these folks out of your project if you want to guarantee that the people you hire are able to hit the ground running and not stop by your office every 10 minutes when they get stumped by some quirk in the codebase. What you describe is the "Knotted Shoelace" antithesis to the ball of mud. Functional? Yes. Strong? Sure...but to re-lace your shoe you have to painstakingly pick it apart.