I agree with the general point, however, I believe it's commonplace for software to be poor on those other metrics you mention too, i.e. the one metric that /ha

I agree with the general point, however, I believe it's commonplace for software to be poor on those other metrics you mention too, i.e. the one metric that /has/ been optimised is development cost. All of the optimal outcomes define a Pareto front, i.e. spend time optimising feature A versus speed, cost, etc. But as soon as you bring in low(er) quality engineers you're moving away from the Parento front, probably quite significantly so.