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Perhaps being a "productive" programmer requires understanding the requirements well enough to quickly write working code, then moving on to the next problem. Personally, I usually find that it takes two refactorings/rewrites to go from initial working code to something that I honestly believe is understandable/maintainable, and I don't always have time to do that.

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It's more subtle than that. People act as if developers are all a clean slate, which isn't true.

developers have personalities with differing values. That super productive developer may just not value the flexibility of the code due to his personality coupled with that developers personal experience.

That developer will absolutely shine in some environments and be abysmal in others since there are absolutely environments where flexibility isn't an overriding concern.

As you get more experience you learn to be more explicit about your decisions, but you'll still have your preferences and your defaults and it takes a certain threshold for you to move away from said preferences and defaults.

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