Some of these points look like a common sense nowadays (is there any software team in year 2020 that does not use any VCS?), but do not agree with a couple of them.

> Do you use the best tools money can buy?

This is just unrealistic, and actually not required - the tools do not have to be the best, they should be adequate. Which author kind of confirms discussing his #1: "I’ve used CVS, which is free, and let me tell you, CVS is fine."

> Do you do hallway usability testing?

Usability testing is important, of course, but IMHO it should not be done in hallway, but rather among the target audience. Otherwise you'll end up with UI that is easy to do some basic things with, but very inconvenient for real work, in real workflow that is not possible to test in hallway (not providing any examples to not hurt anybody feelings by accident, but from my experience this is quite common, unfortunately).