[Silhouette]

For personal software development projects of course there are other factors that matter beyond finding the theoretically optimal X and Y. From a management perspective in business those factors might also matter. You want to get the best performance out of your team but you're not going to do that if people keep quitting due to an unpleasant work environment.

As far as advocacy goes though - when someone is recommending what other people should do - I think it's very different if there is relevant evidence and it doesn't back up the advocated position. It's even more different if there is relevant evidence that positively undermines the advocated position. There are snake oil salesmen in this industry and some of them will call you names if you don't follow their pet process. But if what they're peddling isn't backed by the evidence or even contradicts the evidence then they should be called out and their audience should probably be sceptical about anything else those same salesmen are selling as well. The old joke about someone finding it hard to believe something when their continued employment depends on its falsehood is as relevant as ever.