I agree with this in theory, but the majority (all?) of the companies I have worked for always treated code written the first time as “final”.

Pushing back against inept product managers that do not understand the consequences of their actions or ideas can be a truly sisyphean task.

The real problem is when developers are not given time to go back and refactor things, or worse when management points the finger at devs for “not doing it right the first time”. Reducing technical debt should be seen as a high level task at the same importance level of other features of the software… not relegated to be a “treat” for developers to “fix their bad code”.

You can’t teach give a shit, but you sure can beat it out of people.