> Some beloved features have very shaky engineering indeed, and many features that failed miserably were built like cathedrals on the inside.

What's under the hood, the people who use the product, don't care.

Customers, and ultimately companies as well, only care that the product works, is maintainable over the long term, and is bug-free.

Cathedrals in the desert are useless, and over-engineering only complicates things when there's no need yet.

I've also seen several successful projects that were actually quite weak behind the scenes, but they were simple and functional.