I see this as a positive, not at all a negative. Programming is rare in that the field lends itself very well to creative destruction / natural competition / ev

I see this as a positive, not at all a negative. Programming is rare in that the field lends itself very well to creative destruction / natural competition / evolution, for many of the reasons you describe. The process is chaotic on an individual level but the population as a whole moves forward far more intelligently than any centralized process could hope to mimic.