There is definitely an aspect of raw time that needs to be put into development to make a prod version of software robust, but that still doesn't account for th

There is definitely an aspect of raw time that needs to be put into development to make a prod version of software robust, but that still doesn't account for the bloat. The real issue for the bloat is simple lack of engineering skill. Most "engineers" have very little clue of what goes on under the hood when their code is running, and really only rely on learned patterns to complete their job. So many times I have been given code for a service that when run locally doesn't work, with the explanation that you have to test it in beta stage - the reason this happens is because nobody who started writing that code has any idea of what goes on outside of the boilerplate that is provided for them to fill in.