I think this is a really helpful remark.
If you look at where this works, the team simply needs to execute -- largely not think creatively. I can see, then, why this is a comparatively rare form of organisation in programming teams.
I wonder if there's room for it in programming training. Imagine being drilled to produce the same algorithm in a variety of languages over-and-over. Would this be useful? (I use to drill myself in writing dynamic dispatch MVC frameworks as a teenager; I could produce a whole framework and app in a 1hr technical interview -- is this useful? I dont know).
I raise this because I've become increasingly interested in rationalising the Ramsey-esq autocrat, as its always been a part of myself I have been most self-critical of; because I am at once very sensitive to upsetting people but also "brutally attentive" to their (and my own) failure.
I have recently been asking myself: is this brutality actually useful? How much? Does it really require the humiliation a Ramsey or drill-sarg engages in?
Recent western cultural mores are aimed at ameliorating ego-injuries. Is there value in causing ego-injuries? Is there value in humiliation? Clearly there is -- it works in some cases.
Its a weird question to ask though: our culture is so preoccupied with preventing ego-injury... it seems immoral and absurd to suggest causing them.