[nsfyn55]

I would say both, but if I had to choose one I'd choose shipping. Anyone who has ever code spelunked through a multi-year code base notices something. Most code is written and never touched again, good or bad. This means most investments to ensure maintainability yield no return. I think a better approach is to exercise good judgement. Critical, high churn/high risk code is easily identifiable and should be given proper attention. Code that is not critical path, trivial in complexity, or unlikely to change can survive with more lax standards.