[the_real_cher]

I personally think one does a lot of the theory building while you're getting it done because you're building something new and can't predict the kinds of issues that youll encounter.

Any sort of software that's architected only in flowcharts and uml by 'pure architects' are absolutely worthless to anyone but business people.

[gorjusborg]

I agree that there needs to be a feedback loop including the system and decision makers (I also have a distrust of non-contributing 'architects').

However, just because you can 'get things done' in the current system doesn't imply you have a good enough theory for maintaining it sustainably. I've often seen self proclaimed 10x coders who trade healthy shared theory for mean time to deployment too aggressively.

They are fast, get praise and pay, then move on before the negative effects of their short term strategy becomes clear.

Another job of 'senior' devs is to point out to the business when this is happening.