It always astonished me how delicate coders in the UK are (I am from Germany, working in the UK currently). During a team meeting at a former company, my "ruthlessness" was brought up as a negativism. I countered that (or so I thought) with the following question to the rest of the coder team: "Do you want me to point out problems I perceive with the code / approach / whatever, or do you want me to hold back in order to be considerate of someone". To my surprise, in the presence of management, the unanimous answer was to show consideration!

I think people who work together should be able to openly communicate with each other about technical issues. Sadly, most people are (either self-perceived or for real) not good enough to do that without bruised egos.