[kohsuke]

This is indeed a religion, because in my experience people tend to feel strongly holding very different positions. You can already see it in this thread.

I think quantifying and prioritizing is key, like you wrote. Respected engineering organizations like Google and GitHub all came to the same place. Flakiness is often unevenly distributed, so find & tackle ones that are the worst. Don't try to eliminate the flakiness because that's not economically viable.

I'm trying to put my money where my mouth is... we'll see how it goes.