Lucky you! :-) The one additional bonus of this scheme that popped up somewhat as a side effect is one can deploy the new feature into the “prod” build even be

Lucky you! :-) The one additional bonus of this scheme that popped up somewhat as a side effect is one can deploy the new feature into the “prod” build even before it hits the master: code it up, add the instruction to cherry-pick the change into the branch of a builder, test it and if it works then merge that instruction into the “master” builder. Then, the feature will remain in prod builds as a custom cherry-pick until it’s merged upstream. And if it isn’t merged - then one has a recurring reminder of their technical debt that they have incurred by diverging. Once adopted, it became a pretty cool way to adopt “right” long term incentives without door-stopping the short term “urgent” deliverables.