Maybe I'm being overly optimistic. Where I work we rarely output code that is beautiful and lovely at the expense of creating deliverables on time. I blame our process. I think that we could do both if we adjusted a few of our assumptions. But then maybe I'm just a daydreamer.
Is your sadface implying you are saddened by the lack of love you have for the code that creates products your customers love?
Yep. The products have been cool, the codebase monstrous. Painful legacy stuff mainly.
"Architecture, what architecture?"
But then, contracts for it were in the $millions range, so it was an experience!