I've run into the opposite issue. I like macro lists in C/C++ (not sure what people call them). It's the idea that you create a pre-processor list and then use that list to effectively code generate. For example you can use the list to generate enums, enum to string tables, case statements for all cases, etc.... It's clever but it's also IMO best practice because it prevents bugs. The reason they're used is it prevents the various parallel tables from getting out of sync. It's also arguably better than some external code generator because there are less dependencies.

So, is that a "clever" solution that should be avoided because it's "clever" or is it a best practice because it actually solves real problems? Problems which have cost me hours of debugging that could have been avoided if I'd just used the "clever" solution. For me it's the latter.

In fact, speaking to the OP, it also encodes the original programmer's logic since without them, the new programmer has to know the 4 to 9 places they'd need to edit to add to the list where as with them they only need to know 1.