idiocratic

Hexagonal architettures combined with a command processing pipeline help in defining test boundaries and entry points. Those entry points are your public interfaces, everything beneath shouldn't need any test. The entirety of the core application behaviour is testable in isolation by design. You basically end up writing mini acceptance tests for your domain logic.

I think that's a preferable approach for complex systems, the "redundant tests" issue is not a problem and end to end tests are reduced to just a few proving everything is hooked up.

As an Italian living in the UK I'm not sure anything changed in Italy in this field. I see more and more Italians establishing their companies in the UK or Germany, because it's mostly hassle-free and better in the long run. Italy has a problem with business, risk is not something that the few investors are willing to consider and startups are just a tiny fragment of an IT market ruled by short-term contracts with 3 levels of outsourcing.

There are exceptions, but you can count them on the fingers of one hand.

Rome is much smaller than the cities you mentioned.