> it is actually possible to write highly-reusable code that is clean, understandable, and not "over-engineered"
You might be able to do that. That code (most likely) still needs to solve a complex issue and needs documentation to survive next to it. Also, there is a good chance that the next guy coming to fix it is not going to investigate the extra time to fully understand the code if he can fix that one crash by throwing in a hotfix at the specific line accessing a nullpointer. Lastly, at some point, if you need to solve a difficult problem, the code to do so is likely going to be more difficult to read, too.
It's not impossible to do this, but having the time to do a clean solution, having the foresight to be right about the necessary complexity and also have the environment for it to stay clean is simply rare.
You might be able to do that. That code (most likely) still needs to solve a complex issue and needs documentation to survive next to it. Also, there is a good chance that the next guy coming to fix it is not going to investigate the extra time to fully understand the code if he can fix that one crash by throwing in a hotfix at the specific line accessing a nullpointer. Lastly, at some point, if you need to solve a difficult problem, the code to do so is likely going to be more difficult to read, too.
It's not impossible to do this, but having the time to do a clean solution, having the foresight to be right about the necessary complexity and also have the environment for it to stay clean is simply rare.