[convolvatron]

more than risk assessment, I think an appropriate question is whether or not the work is structural or not. non-structural debt is self-contianed, and the cost of fixing it might well decrease over time.

cross-cutting concerns that are left to fixed later can leave you in a really bad spot (i.e. making revenue off the MVP, but largely unable to move it forward)

[juancn]

That's a type of risk too.

I couldn't go over all the weird ways it can go wrong in a comment (probably not even in a book), so I used "risk" as the catch-all umbrella, but yes, architectural bugs are a lot harder to fix. It's doable, but very tricky to pull off right.