I really like the first analogy, actually. A driver who knows all the details of how each engine works will be able to choose the car that provides the best fue

I really like the first analogy, actually. A driver who knows all the details of how each engine works will be able to choose the car that provides the best fuel economy and performance, but in the end, the driver's status will really only be judged on the style and features of the car they choose. i.e. the developer who chooses the slower zeroarray algorithm that still completes in reasonable time, but provides a better user interface and better feature set is still the better software developer (but perhaps the poorer computer scientist).