"This article makes me think of the woodworker's dilemma."

I'll definitely say that this applies in the car hobby.

It's a helluva lot more fun to arrange a garage than to pull out a transmission.

In terms of software, and this is perhaps just my age (and industry) showing, but it would be interesting to set up a shop that used only simple/traditional make files, gdb/gcc, simple text editors, extremely simple source control, waterfall design.

It wouldn't work at Google but you sure can get wrapped up in building the garage at smaller companies.