My point is that there isn't a tradeoff between getting "real work" done or writing tests. Either you write tests, or you spend the even more time mitigating th

My point is that there isn't a tradeoff between getting "real work" done or writing tests. Either you write tests, or you spend the even more time mitigating the consequences of not writing tests. You can't save time by not writing tests (except for the most trivial cases).