[erik_seaberg]

If you reliably generate the boilerplate and throw it away, you can ignore it (and you've changed which language you're really using). If it's at all possible for a human to permanently edit the boilerplate, well now it can be wrong, so you have to start reviewing it.

[ethbro]

A valid point. I didn't mention it above to stay concise, but the question then becomes:

If you can reliably generate boilerplate, AND it's non-editable, then why is it required by the language in the first place?

If it is editable, then it collapses back down into review burden.

I think this is where "sane, invisible, overridable defaults" shines. Boilerplate should be invisible in its default behavior. BUT the language should afford methods to change its default behavior when necessary.