I think there lies the misunderstanding: "Sure our code was small and simple, and theirs large and complex" Having a complex piece of code, maybe with a lot o

I think there lies the misunderstanding: "Sure our code was small and simple, and theirs large and complex" Having a complex piece of code, maybe with a lot of 'historical cruft' and legacy 3rd party modules? Business politics? Maybe a new manager wants his programming team to work on 'Shiny X' because that will make him/her look better with upper management? Trust me, 95% of programmers (and most people for that matter) would rather feel like they are doing a valuable service and adding value to a product or service, than simply and lazily going through the motions of 'coding'. Until you've walked a mile in some 'Enterprise application developer', or any one else I think it will be difficult for you to evaluate the global picture. Although I understand you frustration and completely agree with the symptoms you mention, the cause is far more complex and difficult to grasp unfortunately.