I certainly can't disagree with you, Bloodrage, that there are situations where anal-retentives in the wrong place screw things up. I'm hoping that most engineers I know won't be so stupid as to act like a bean-smasher.

What I meant by that advice was that we should have the attitude that we have to make each dollar and each hour of our time count. That kind of individual sense of responsibility is what makes a free market work and it's also the way to keep a big corporation from descending into bureaucratic ossification. The best way to reduce operating expenses is to get development done as rapidly and effectively as possible. Sometimes that means spending more to get enough tools to do the job right, other times it means spending more design time on a whiteboard before spending money.