I worked for a time in a Java (and some other stuff) shop, and I witnessed people spending hours and iterations on code that could easily have been substituted

I worked for a time in a Java (and some other stuff) shop, and I witnessed people spending hours and iterations on code that could easily have been substituted with some not too sophisticated pattern matching. Some of the "senior developers" seemed to find the topic totally novel. I think things have changed somewhat in the last 5 - 7 years, but I can appreciate the parent's point.