And from the customer's point of view, the first product did the single most important thing properly. Feed the cats with minimal human input. That's still a decision on the creators' part i.e the creators could have sat down and bickered about colour options but they (presumably) took a decision to fix the customer's problem.

The fact that Jeff used the same feeders for five years is a testament to how well the original designers were able to address the core problem well enough.

Edit: They also functioned well enough that he bought the updated version on faith.

A great clarification as well. And a customer certainly is not going to be aware of the decisions made around trade-offs, direction, etc.