I have not found working on the wrong things to be problematic so long as you take the time to eliminate the wrong things once they have established themselves as being wrong.
Not taking time is, at heart, where tech debt is born. That can manifest debt across all areas of the development process. Pressure to not take time can certainly come from management, but I have also witnessed on numerous occasions the reverse, where management asks developers to slow down and take the time to do the work well; sometimes to no avail.
Either way, your underlying thesis is quite true that given the perfect system an imperfect team will quickly reintroduce said problems into the system. This is why many software companies have become hyper-picky (even before the tech crash) about hiring. They want to try and avoid building a team that wants to shortcut that time.
Not taking time is, at heart, where tech debt is born. That can manifest debt across all areas of the development process. Pressure to not take time can certainly come from management, but I have also witnessed on numerous occasions the reverse, where management asks developers to slow down and take the time to do the work well; sometimes to no avail.
Either way, your underlying thesis is quite true that given the perfect system an imperfect team will quickly reintroduce said problems into the system. This is why many software companies have become hyper-picky (even before the tech crash) about hiring. They want to try and avoid building a team that wants to shortcut that time.