I agree with so many of your points. In my experience quality costs more up front. It takes better coders, more time and often appears to not be moving things forward. On the other hand, quantity and speed are easy to achieve. You can grab most coders and get quick and dirty solutions. The project appears to be meeting goals and everyone is happy. Eventually, this slows and people start saying that we should have focused on quality. They start talking about the mountains of tech debt but by then stake holders have often moved on to the next big thing. This shoddy code is move to legacy and some poor soul is damned to maintain it forever. The cycle renews. Legacy becomes a "re-write" and we do it all over again. It is the way of the corporation.

In seriousness, well put. It takes strong leaders to overcome this cycle and convince stake holders that it is worth it. Thanks for addressing this and hopefully some new leaders will emerge to create little oases of hope.