Comment by steven2012

There are always good reasons for doing everything. But this is how you end up with a "death by a thousand cuts" scenario. Sometimes, if you want to be great, you have to be bold. Windows NT was bold back in 1995 when I first played with 3.51. It was the best OS out there by far.

Now, once you set up a system where people play it safe more than they innovate, you'll get a situation where all of the best programmers will want to leave because it's boring, and you're left with mediocre programmers who aren't good enough to be bold and innovative. This is exactly what the OP describes.