Jeff Vogel's blog post "Why All of Our Games Look Like Crap"[1] and its follow-up "I am the Cheapest Bastard in Indie Games"[2], about the design decisions and tradeoffs in his games (particularly around the art and its cost) got a lot of traction here.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20765521
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20804998