As for the Gell-Mann amnesia effect, I remember exactly how/when I noticed it. In high school, there was a football game at our school which was technically a t

As for the Gell-Mann amnesia effect, I remember exactly how/when I noticed it. In high school, there was a football game at our school which was technically a trade school with all the shop classes but also with good academics. Apparently there was this supposed rivalry between our school and another nearby trade school. The reports of the event described it like there was chaos and rampant vandalism and some violence. I was there the whole time. At most there was some left-over litter on the field from people having fun. That's when I learned the value of printed words in newspapers. I stopped reading them, except as entertainment or the classifieds. Software can also have mistaken identity. Something that appears polished, is good software because not only did they make the thing do its function, but they even had time to do all this other stuff to make it look and feel great. The other possibility is that they did that work first, and the core function works just well enough that you can't readily tell it's completely broken inside if you go slightly off the beaten path.