[samhw]

^ I thought I should clarify: the reason I'm making the point about relative deltas in speed is that many people ITT seem to think they can leapfrog the tricky question of tech debt by just saying "well, we should all be better engineers, and then we'd write the better-of-the-two implementation more quickly".

And that's just not so. It doesn't matter how fast or quick-minded the engineer is in absolute terms. I've worked with some of the best engineers in the world, and they still took on tech debt (albeit in an intelligent and considered way), because simpler solutions are still faster in relative terms.

Tech debt will forever be a rational choice so long as there's a comparative advantage - so to speak - in taking the simpler path.