You aren’t wrong - for some things. I think it’s a spectrum. For the things I work on, and frankly always have, I spend most of my time in the “R” part of R&D.

You aren’t wrong - for some things. I think it’s a spectrum. For the things I work on, and frankly always have, I spend most of my time in the “R” part of R&D. Now granted, I’ve never worked on classical “business” or CRUD type problems. It’s natural to think that once you have lots of experience, that estimating will be easier. In my experience, I found myself simply tackling harder or unique problems. Instead of getting comfortable, you find yourself mostly operating at the edge of your competence. This is great fun [1] but makes estimating pretty hard. [1] I personally enjoy being on the “black diamond” part of the learning curve. (“Black diamond” = most difficult ski trail)