> As far as "engineering" goes, specifying your types is about as low-hanging, basic a step as you can take.

How do you come to such a conclusion when there have been many languages whose success was specifically tied to the fact that they were dynamically typed? Doesn't that indicate a pain point?

> If this is "over-engineering" then I think that says a lot about how much thought, design and engineering goes into some of these code bases.

"Over-engineering" means drawing blueprints when the job is to change a bulb. It does not mean that blueprints are useless. It's about the job and the tools picked to do it. I can conceive of many jobs that fit the scope of a dynamic language and where bringing the big typed cannons could be seen as over-engineering.