I think you're on to something. I compress this to “quantity is easier to manage than complexity”. The simpler version will commonly be “more” in terms of LoC

I think you're on to something. I compress this to “quantity is easier to manage than complexity”. The simpler version will commonly be “more” in terms of LoC but, as you say, easier to grasp and to work with when done well. I found (the right form of) laziness a good counterforce. I don't want to wrack my brain with an over-engineered abstraction, but I also don't want to squirt the same 15 lines of code all over the codebase. When the criterion for correctness changes, I'll have to edit those 15 lines everywhere, and I'm guaranteed to forget at least one instance.