Fewer (in charge) developers makes for a more stable product - even open source products fair better when they have a long term maintainer versus ownership chan

Fewer (in charge) developers makes for a more stable product - even open source products fair better when they have a long term maintainer versus ownership changes frequently. The other thing is style - when used well, state machines don't require testing. There's nothing to test - either your machine works or it doesn't, there is no point testing state transitions because that is the fundamental job of the state machine. You may as well test that addition works. Ofc, they must be used well - problems may be difficult or overly complex to model as a state machine or even set of state machines - the pattern excels for small problems, less for large ones.