This restricts metaprogramming, not you putting "template <typename T>" in your code for a generic function. I don't know how you got such a weird read of the r

This restricts metaprogramming, not you putting "template <typename T>" in your code for a generic function. I don't know how you got such a weird read of the readability requirements; it is definitely not as strict as you put here (and I'm currently at Google and commonly write C++).