[syllogism]

But think about what you just wrote! "Avoid technical debt at all costs" --- of course you don't mean that literally.

What you mean is "avoid technical debt at a price at which paying down the debt is good value", which is...totally banal.

Technical debt is half of a complicated trade-off. You can't say anything more useful than "make good trade-offs" in the abstract...Which is why I hated this article, and others like it.

[Bahamut]

Well, "at all costs" is used as a colloquy to mean "as much as possible". Sometimes it isn't possible of course, but managers and developers owe it to themselves to make better decisions many times.

I think the worst offender I see is in developers when it comes to this - many tend to cut time and be afraid of exploring something new.