There's also a social aspect, where any problem that you encounter is immediately pinned on your choice of a peculiar setup, and becomes a story that gets told

There's also a social aspect, where any problem that you encounter is immediately pinned on your choice of a peculiar setup, and becomes a story that gets told and repeated. You may have a professor who is suspicious that you are wasting time on what seems like a quixotic pursuit. So you actually have to go way overboard to ensure that your stuff always works perfectly, and that nobody ever sees you trying to troubleshoot something.