[mik3y]

(author here - oh gee, hi hn!)

Yes, those things are always important (if not critical); it's not meant as a defense of bad architecture, merely to try to make those decisions through a product/customers-first lens.

(I did try to connect quality/reliablity, perhaps unsuccessfully, later in the post, e.g. in goals: "If the system is unreliable, we won’t ship as much product ... If we don’t replace this system, more and more customers will experience a broken product.")

[habitue]

Maybe I was overly swayed by the rhetoric I see fairly frequently and you caveated it appropriately. I apologize if so

[mik3y]

Or maybe I just wrote too much - I always wish I could be more concise. It's all good!