The problem with rewarding for efficiency is it also decreases efficiency on the project you're working on. It takes time to make code more efficient. It's faster (for humans) to just get it to work. It's all rather unfortunate. I'd rather spend some time on something to make it a more pleasant experience for the user but this want usually conflicts with time needs. Until there's something amazing coming out that can bring up the efficiency of writing applications, efficiency in code will tend to take a back seat.

Case in point, a project I'm working on now, I went to meet up with the guy who'll be using it and decided to spend a little bit of time making a long process a little faster. Then realized it was futile to keep going with the optimization because I was already pressed for time due to last minute additions -- and the project is already deemed late.

My last job my boss really didn't care if something was well-coded. As long as it worked, time and money trumped how well the programs ran.

Of course most countries have their problems. The trick is not every government is trying to shield their citizens from outside influence where they can get dangerous ideas. As long as the Internet's open, anyone smart enough can get their news, which is where I get mine because I don't like the media on television. When you block the Internet, you're blocking the last free source.

I really, really, really hope the Chinese people wake up one day and notice their government has a stranglehold on all information in and out of the country just so it can keep it's own power. Or at least that's how I see it. I really don't know why the Chinese government does what it does but I wish I knew.

When Blizzard takes a popular add-on, like say Outfitter, ItemRack, CTRaidFrames or Scrolling Combat Text and implements them in the stock UI lots of people complain it's "not as good." They have said in the past that that's exactly their intention, to implement these features to the UI as light and fluffy, just the basics. My guess is so it doesn't become overbearing as they continue to do this. I've seen many other people's UIs look like a ride from hell because they have 20 add-ons running at once and they have this magnifying-glass-sized portion to look at the game field.

They also don't want to replace said add-on but feel it has use that probably now belongs in the stock UI. This way, the add-on authors don't feel short-changed that Blizzard stole their work and there's no point continuing.

That said, I have to agree with others. This seems to be in the best interest of add-on consumers. I can easily see 3 years down the road many add-ons charging and/or soliciting donations in-game and whenever I run WoW I have to close 5 windows asking me for money.