I'm glad I'm encouraged to "inject just the right amount of humanity", but I think I'd prefer to inject just the right amount of lead into my cranium.
I compare it to driving in traffic. A lot of times I'm not in a hurry and can just stay in one lane and crawl along. Other times, I am in a hurry and I can weave in and out, getting flustered and angry and nearly crashing and still end up 4 cars ahead of where I'd have been without all that.
Rarely, you can do all that extra work and get meaningful improvement that justified all the effort. It does happen. Sometimes it presents itself in the form of a severance package.