[extra_rice]

Just as bad as the people who obsess over "beautiful code" and whatnot are the people who straight out reject the idea, then label those who observe them the "enemy" of this industry.

I think the key here really is mindfulness. Developers read code significantly more than they write them, and one of the primary goals of best practices and clean coding guidelines is to help teams communicate effectively through code. Writing code well is a skill, but that doesn't start and end at taking all the "rules" to heart; that's just the first step. The next is really to recognise that there aren't any rules, but more heuristics based on collective experiences. Software development is not an exact science, and just like the Agile Manifesto, clean coding guidelines only provide framework upon which to build any team's practices: a starting point from which to find what actually works for their project.