I've always thought there has been dissonance between the remarkable amount of "this is how we did it at the paper" baked into the code and the libertarian "you

I've always thought there has been dissonance between the remarkable amount of "this is how we did it at the paper" baked into the code and the libertarian "you should do what works for you" in the docs. (What worked at the paper has always worked well for me, of course, but I've never been too adventurous about straying.)