How terrible code gets written by perfectly sane people

Corollary: Assuming that good process doesn't restrict good people.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves: management decisions that don't account enough for outliers; that is, their best people. Management has never done it, therefore it cannot be done. This, as much as anything else, drives your best developers away.

Give us the hard stuff to do and let us alone to do it. That's all we ask.

Otherwise you're left with terrible code.

Great post. You struck a lot of nerves. Thank you, OP.