I totally agree with that, but I'm not sure I agree it's playing devils advocate. By which I mean, I don't think we're disagreeing here. They're both real thing

I totally agree with that, but I'm not sure I agree it's playing devils advocate. By which I mean, I don't think we're disagreeing here. They're both real things that happen: 1. People rushing out crap code and not taking responsibility for cleaning their mess. 2. People trying to clean up code, but doing a poor job for various reasons. (Incompetence, lacking sufficient domain-knowledge at the start, bogged down by organizational problems, etc.) The problem in each case is people either lacking the capability or desire to do excellent work. "Ship fast or write decent quality code" is a false dichotomy.