In my opinion, a main reason for the situation described by the author is lack of architectural governance in large projects. The most senior programmer often i

In my opinion, a main reason for the situation described by the author is lack of architectural governance in large projects. The most senior programmer often is assigned the role of "the architect", even if he is more of a type that likes to obsess over details rather than the big picture. Such types are prone to dismiss the importance of conceptual integrity throughout a complex project which ultimately leads to the pile of unsustainable mess that many enterprise-class applications have become. Brooks laid out the importance of conceptual integrity pretty well in in the mythical man month. It is often not taken serious enough today.