[jeffreygoesto]

Maybe because these companies see the coding part as almost mechanical and try to tackle the complexity with (often overboarding) design and processes? Problem is that those assume that a tree like divide-and-conquer will reduce complexity in the "leaf-nodes", but as soon as you have a lot of cross-cutting dependencies everybody is shaking that tree.

The problem with "artisanal developers" is that they tend to overestimate their proximity and underestimate how much of a "system" they actually should build. Most of the time they lack domain knowledge, too.

If you can identify the cross-cutting interactions that will result in the biggest risk for the project, and put how to handle those in a design that is communicated well, you can leave freedom how to do the rest and the craftsmen will be appeased. But that needs a good deal of domain (and people) knowlege.