[Smudge]

Seconded. The most important thing for me, when writing code, is whether or not I (or someone else) will be able to read it in 6 months. The second most important thing is whether I'll be able to throw this away and replace it with something else, which perhaps counterintuitively means I need to spend more time ensuring the code I'm writing doesn't wrap tendrils of interdependencies into the rest of the codebase. An important part of that is ensuring that any major interfaces/APIs (both internal and external) are simple, predictable, and well-documented.

Even following those two rules alone, you can avoid building these complex, black-box solutions that nobody is willing to touch.