Skill over Return on investment any day. The whole project to me reminds me of the days of the Amiga and the days of the 68000. People just showing what they can do with their code, rather then reliance on another companies short cut suit that in itself does things in such away that using "makes development" easier (lazier), so that companies can get ROI Think Epic tools, crystal tools and the like. I respect any one who can code, but the most respect goes to those who really get to know systems so well, that they can squeeze every bit of performance out of it!
I get why this software like epic tools and the like is needed, but look at what happened with consoles like the PS3, a lot of its titles did not even use the hardware properly with only Koji pro and the like really utilizing the consoles hardware with shear skill.
680000 coders are still making demos for it, and MVG did a video on this recently. This hardware was used cross generation in systems from the 80s right up till late 90s, which is crazy!