"The one-time cost of learning a good abstraction is strictly less than the ongoing cost of understanding and then continually reimplementing it by hand."

In theory, I agree with you. However, the main thrust of my post is that the practice is not working out as that theory predicts.

I haven't fully worked out all the bits and pieces, but I do know that just repeating that the theory must be correct because it must be correct even if it contradicts the evidence is not the correct way forward. Theory bows to evidence, not the other way around.