Some people have read far more than ten times as many math and programming books than others, and spent far more than ten times as much time making sure they th

Some people have read far more than ten times as many math and programming books than others, and spent far more than ten times as much time making sure they thoroughly understand what they've read; and then gone on to tackle ten times as many hairy projects on the edge than others because it was fun for them. True, an environment can encourage the laggards to catch up or fire 'em if they have no interest in improving their skills and knowledge; but it can't wave a wand and create the skills. I would also note that there are tenX (plus) refactorers who can freely cut large amounts of code from large projects without risk, too. If you started tackling mathematical puzzles when you were eight, and programming a couple years later you're a different species than someone who switched majors to computing in third year for financial reasons; the early starter's brain is actually physically different (for instance some of your visual cortex and memory will now likely be devoted to math and logic instead of geography, this has been measured in chess players.) Same with a concert pianist vs someone who started playing the piano at age 20. Sure, the environment of the concert hall or practice hall matters - just not nearly that much. I agree we do need to spend more time paying off boring technical debt, too; though that's not getting much more popular. I don't want to leave the wrong impression. There's absolutely nothing wrong with doing a very conscientious job of coding and recoding that a whole lot of others could also do, just with a better ethic and constant attention to detail - we need many more such coders too, and I honor them very much.