I would counter with it's easier to fix bugs, improve performance, pay down technical debt than it is to fix consensus, stakeholder buy-in, and strategic direction. So even though good code, design, and architecture isn't easy it's still the easy part in a relative sense.

That’s because fundamentally you need those strategic items to have space to do those particular detail items. If you have the best strategy and no execution, you can probably hire for that. If you have no strategy and decent execution, you are driving the Titanic into the iceberg.