Conscientiousness and empathy are rare commodities in software development. It's difficult for somebody to get out of their own head and consider a problem fresh, and it's not always personally rewarding to do so. It's also expensive, if you want to back it up with user testing.

You see it, even, in ostensibly public-consumption open-source projects, where the goal is clearly not merely to scratch one's own itch but to market the project for uptake for this reason or that. I feel like SQLite is a great example of what happens when a team is able to foster the kind of empathy to really understand how the user wants it to be.