Now imagine if the people working on the lower level stuff had the same attitude. Imagine if the codec implementations were slow because we need more features.

Now imagine if the people working on the lower level stuff had the same attitude. Imagine if the codec implementations were slow because we need more features. Imagine if the graphics people never gave a damn about perf, just like the "programmers" you're talking about. Imagine if your database was the main perf hog in your system etc. etc. I'm sorry, but here's an unpopular opinion: those people are just not good engineers. The increments of software development should be abstractions, not features.