(Full disclosure, former AD employee) In particular with precision Analog / mixed-signal / RF, there is a real recognition that there is no perfect Amplifier /

(Full disclosure, former AD employee) In particular with precision Analog / mixed-signal / RF, there is a real recognition that there is no perfect Amplifier / Converter / Black Box X, that will satisfy all applications. That all abstractions (and inputs) are leaky, a wire is never just a wire, ground is never ground, noise exists, etc. That the reality is that there are myriad tradeoffs to be made depending on what you want to do, and the best way to be successful is to acknowledge that fact from the start without any bullshit; And as a supplier to tell you exactly what those real-world tradeoffs are and help guide you towards being successful. To their credit the applications engineers and even sales folks when I was there were just as happy to sell you a $.05 "jellybean", as they were to sell the latest precision laser-trimmed FancyAmp if that's all you needed because they were like minded engineers too, and at the end of the day, building something that did the job it needed to was satisfying. (Plus, as anyone whose done consumer/ high-volume electronics will tell you, BOM cost is it's own variable in the optimization space that can lead to some creative design choices!)