[kibwen]

> Alas, as long as promotion to principal developer and beyond

This is a problem that we can actually blame on techology rather than programmer psychology. Yes, software changes for many reasons (including the reason you give), but the fundamental reason why software keeps changing is because hardware keeps changing. Any software that refuses to change in order to take advantage of new hardware is replaced by new software that does. You will never, ever get software to stop changing until hardware is frozen in stone... forever.