We have to ask ourselves what the purpose of refactoring is. People use that word like some magic incantation, as if the value of some particular instance of "refactoring" were self-evident. "What are you doing?" "Oh, I'm refactoring X." "-hushed tones- Ohhhh, yes, carry on, then..."

Refactoring improves code organization. It makes the code more maintainable, arguably and more reusable. And, from an academic POV, makes code more satisfying conceptually by aligning it with the model of a domain more clearly and conspicuously. Good stuff.

Great. Now, in industry, what matters is the result. Nobody cares if the result was produced by a witch casting magic spells or a grunt hitting a rock with another rock. Industry is practical. It cares about "craft" as far as it enables commercial success (and yes, short-term thinking can be bad, but guess what: you need to eat in the short-term!). Maintainability is a nice thing to have, because it does allow us to more quickly develop code. But how maintainable something needs to be, especially in relation to other competing concerns, has no fixed answer. It really depends on the situation.

Practical wisdom, known as prudence in the classical literature, is the foundation of all moral behavior. The right decision, the right concern, really does depend on the circumstances. You cannot derive from principles, from the armchair, what the right course of action is for everything. The general principles may be immutable and absolute and fixed, but the way in which they are applied in particular circumstances will vary.

Academia can insulate people from certain kinds of practical concerns, which is supposed to aid theoretical work, but this demands that the academic recognize his limits. He is not in a position to pass judgement on prudential matters, which is to say matters that are not strictly matters of principle, if he is not prepared to engage competently with the concrete reality of the situation.