You may be technically correct, but I'd argue it's generally more useful what we do have: practical experience. When one says "we need better architects", to m

You may be technically correct, but I'd argue it's generally more useful what we do have: practical experience. When one says "we need better architects", to me that implies that our current architects are creating design patterns and reference implementations that are both 1) not practical, and 2) don't adhere to known-good best practices. Systems design in real life is an "artistic science": there are always known limitations (and some expected unknown ones) that rule out the theoretic optimal design for good reasons. The problem is that limitations and compromises are often not disclosed, and that many programmers and architects are too inexperienced to really grok the implicit meaning behind specific design decisions. So we struggle along, with bloggers, researchers and FOSS contributors halfheartedly collaborating to make point improvements as solutions are discovered. Stodgy enterprises suffer, big tech companies make decisions with global impact, startups are left wondering WTF to do, and the rest of us largely don't care. Why? Because nit picking doesn't solve business problems [almost ever. I'd argue this point in cases of things like SCADA systems and other mission critical control systems.].