The critical thing is that the architecture remain coherent. Modules have to have clear responsibilities and not get cluttered with special-case hacks that rea

The critical thing is that the architecture remain coherent. Modules have to have clear responsibilities and not get cluttered with special-case hacks that really belong somewhere else. If you keep things reasonably clean that way, I think you can survive being sloppy about other recommended practices... barely, and with effort, but you can survive. But if no one can understand how the system works and predict the effects of changes, the thing is doomed.