I really like your point about solving the common cases, but what you're getting at there is exactly what is the challenging part, not the mathematical part of

I really like your point about solving the common cases, but what you're getting at there is exactly what is the challenging part, not the mathematical part of it. How do you figure out what is the most important 60%, then 90%, then 95%, then 99%? How do you develop the judgment to know when 99% is good enough, or 95%, or 90%, or 60%? How does mathematics help you out with that? My point is that this judgment is the messy and valuable part. And to your point around the end, that you believe we haven't found how to best make use of them just yet -- I agree with that too, and that's why I think the work of writing software, or best practices, or sound theory is not fully established. To build good product does fundamentally require a pioneer spirit that can make compromises and negotiations and arrive at that sweet spot that's not quite 100% but high enough to be "good enough".