Words of (Technical) Wisdom...

Spoken by Travis Corcoran (CEO and Founder of SmartFlix), on software development (by inference, specifically of large systems that will be maintained and extended by programmers other than the original authors):

You should build the majority of your machine from Erector Set parts, but it’s OK to make the core of it from the heart of an orphan child.

In other words, it's ok to have key components be internally complex and abstruse, either because the algorithm is inherently complex or because it is highly tuned for performance. Sounds about right to me...but go read his entire (very short) post to see the rest of the story!