Many of these guidelines essentially boil down to strategies for preventing over-engineering.

I concur; in my experience, premature optimization is one of the most expensive pitfalls. This primarily stems from the fact that circumventing potential issues too early leaves them unchallenged, resulting in the next team having to devise expensive solutions to address the unnecessary complexity.

The approach that was instilled in me is this: optimizations rely on presumptions, and these presumptions are often incorrect in the beginning.

Additionally, I've discovered that managing ego and understanding psychology play crucial roles in dissuading individuals from creating overly complex code.