a) You can easily get away with not giving your best.
b) They dont really care about design anyways.All these middle level managers really want is something that works so that they can show it their bosses who also probably have no clue how software is written.
But then
a) You will miss out the opportunity to learn the flaws in the design that you think is "best" unless you implement it again and again.
b) Although very unlikely,maybe some "higher level" technical architect who actually understands design will read your code and probably promote you to "Senior" engineer.I know its a bullshit position invented by management but then the extra money could help.
I have been trying to solve this problem for a while and it seems like some places and times are better than others to the programming mind.Please let me know what your thoughts are and also point me in the right direction if any of you have thought about this problem before.
Thanks vynch