"The line between elegant reusable libraries and impenetrable abstractions, however, is a fine one, and figuring out where that line is doesn't come without engineers who are willing to experiment a bit and refactor when they were wrong."

Hence my point about design being a creative act in itself, and where a lot of the joy really is to be had. Anything can be formalized to the point of killing the creative spark, but generally a mature approach to software development, but one which recognizes the fact that not only should we not get away from programming as a creative act of design but that in fact no matter how we try we cannot do so anyway is the best approach IMO