I don't disagree w/ your attidude towards the LOC metric, and I especially like your idea in the footnotes about each line of code being a tax on future programmers who have to read the code. I'm afraid that the code example itself is a bit hand-wavy though, since you introduce a "downloadAsync" function that needs to be implemented differently for each example. So I thing your argument could be strengthened with a more concrete code sample. Continuing the money/tax analogy, if each line of code represents a tax to be paid each time the code is read, then the cost of understanding the code with fewer lines represents an "entrance fee" that would be a barrier to less-experienced devs. I could see how even a technically-minded manager might appreciate the code with the lower barrier to entry -- and justifying their continued use of the LOC metric thereby.