Not to mention that code that is only there to provide future-proofiness can be a huge hurdle to understanding an existing codebase for any developer new to a p

Not to mention that code that is only there to provide future-proofiness can be a huge hurdle to understanding an existing codebase for any developer new to a project. The hours spent on trying to understand code that doesn't seem to make sense, only to be told that "we put that in just in case we needed xyz, but it's actually not used anywhere", can be incredibly unproductive and frustrating.