Nowadays I think grinding is just a big part of the project. Like the ancient Chinese wisdom that says half of the road is the first 90% and the other half is the last 10%. I guess by saying grinding you also meant 1) how the engineers were treated, and 2) how quickly they were burnt out, which I agree, but I really like the pinball analogy, and I believe most people feel that way, is because they never got the chance to really play pinball -- they just play games they don't enjoy, so when they read the books they say "Oh those guys' lives really suck".