The last two points seem to be pointed towards architecture decisions, not necessarily coding practices. I see coding practices more as language selection, inde

The last two points seem to be pointed towards architecture decisions, not necessarily coding practices. I see coding practices more as language selection, indentation styles, the forced use of asserts or null checks, etc. ... Things that say how you write, manage or release code. As for the very last point, maybe someone had some data to show that sub-domains increased response time. Alternatively, maybe subdirectories inadvertently introduced less code re-use at the company. Who knows. In business, sometimes there are stupid rules simply because someone thought it was cool. You either abide by it or bring forth some data to show why the rule is wrong (or could be better).