Comment by zahlman

No slight was intended. I've learned a lot of techniques; I don't consider this a matter of elitism. I have generally been fortunate to have control over the architecture of my projects; when I encounter something like this in someone else's code, I can at least raise my concern. Sometimes the code is that way because doing it the other obvious way would lead to some other inconvenience. Hence "a sign", not proof. It's worth investigating signs.