Indeed, I am coming to this conclusion myself. Most of us can write code. Most of us can do capital-A Architecture by reading blogs. The thing that separates programmers that I want to work with are those that who maximize the ratio of benefit to work.

It's not about the code, it's about economics in the broad sense -- understanding opportunity cost, understanding what "benefit" looks like, understanding your team, and making informed trade-offs.

No one thinks duct-tape code is "good" as an art form, but it might be the right decision for a given point in time.