Rewriting code to be more compact is orthogonal to productivity.

In a similar way to how a radial burn (https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/44608/what-happens...) may be orthogonal to your trajectory but still may be necessary to avoid becoming a fireball in half an orbit's time.

you have evidently been blessed to work only in places with acceptable level of quality code and above.

Which is not what is being discussed. Often rewriting code to make it more understandable makes everybody more productive.

[delayed]

Simplification usually requires the most effort and results in simple and elegant systems easy to understand and maintain with reduced error surface.

So overall increases productivity by a lot