> my time was better spent just solving the problem and then moving on to the next problem.
What do you mean with "solving the problem"? A temporary solution for a temporary problem, a definitive solution for a problem that could be forgotten, or something that had to be maintained? In the last case, moving on and leaving others deal with our mess is not professional at all.
That's not what I meant at all. Instead of building lots of bells and whistles and "features" these days, I tend to build the minimum viable product. The last 10% takes 90% of the effort, and I've found it's usually unnecessary/unused anyway. This frees me up to solve 3-4 problems where I once solved 1 (and 3-4 that nobody actually had).
This is, of course, a gross generalization.
Regarding your last sentence: We all "move on and leave others to deal with our mess" to some extent. It's unhealthy for a developer to set out to fix all the problems in a stack, and it's unrealistic to expect them to leave a tidy solution when they're done.
Iterative, collaborative software development is like democracy: Messy and inefficient and frustrating, and also the only viable way to get things done.
What do you mean with "solving the problem"? A temporary solution for a temporary problem, a definitive solution for a problem that could be forgotten, or something that had to be maintained? In the last case, moving on and leaving others deal with our mess is not professional at all.