Something about this rubs me the wrong way. I think the argument that code quality matters less in the tail doesn't account for the fact that you are working on

Something about this rubs me the wrong way. I think the argument that code quality matters less in the tail doesn't account for the fact that you are working on the code right now. By construction, the code you are writing at any point is the most recent code in the code base, so likely in an area that will be touched again soon. I modulate my code quality a little bit, but for the most part I have one gear (write what I consider "high quality" code) and it has served me well. I find cutting corners tends to lead to bugs or other regrets the next time I have to work in the code. At a very minimum, writing quality code helps my thought process while I'm working on it and respects the time of my code reviewers who will have to read it.