Earlier quoted context omitted.
The disconnect is that both sides are valid. User value is important, but stability, opportunity cost, and ROI also provide user value. It's not valid to say that the realities of the current code base are irrelevant just as much as it's invalid to say clean code always trumps features.
That’s actually not true and this is the mistaken idea engineers have. It’s not a negotiation. User value that translates to business goals strictly always trumps internal code. Or you don’t have a business to fund that code. You find a way to do it if you need to fund the business. If not your are sunk.
What this then leads to is borderline unmaintainable code because the project managers, software architects, etc. rarely touch the IDE anymore and the more junior people can't or won't articulate the issues they are having. (i.e. a feature made tests 10x slower, a hastily added API times out often locally, etc.)
This then leads to people jumping ship every 1-2 years, low productivity and bad implementations. All in the name of precious User Value!