Both examples stem from not understanding the problem well enough I think. My best work is done when I first write a throwaway spaghetti solution to the problem. Only through this endeavour do I understand the problem well enough to effectively decompose the solution.
My point is that the factoring and abstractions one produce after the spaghetti intermezzo will be better than a blind stab at them; a greater understanding of the problem helps.
Agree that intermezzos - even of the spaghetti kind - help understanding.
I thought this thread was more about (non) maintainability of code consisting of many procedures for each of which names are to be found that will make their usage self-explaining.
From my experience, simple API's with complex and often long implementations can be very well suited. As long as those are low on side effects and normally DRY, as opposed to puristicly DRY.
