I find that even when given "goals" in a broad sense, when you break down the problem into its constituent parts there generally is very little to debate. And

I find that even when given "goals" in a broad sense, when you break down the problem into its constituent parts there generally is very little to debate. And when there is something to debate, those conversations take time to accumulate information and research, and for people to "digest" them completely. I find that in-person discussions about said topics is more counter-productive than productive since in-person meetings sometimes inadvertently suggests you have a fixed time-frame within which to come to a conclusion. And the "debatable" topics generally aren't going to be acted on immediately. There needs to be coordination and planning when you all come to a conclusion that a particular strategy is going to be the way forward, and a lot of times assumes you're probably going to break backward compatibility so it won't be released until a major version bump.