I would say technical debt is a better problem to deal with. At least the project is alive at that point and you are able to get feedback from actual users.

> an optimum somewhere in the middle

Reasonable code isn’t technical debt. The obvious tipping point is when spending X hours now likey saves people less than X hours in the future. Which unfortunately depends a great deal on the details of the actual project involved and therefore requires experience not some universal methodology.

Sure, in the other extreme they never got shipped in first place, and that marvelous piece of art ended up in a museum.

It is a balance that needs to be learnt, and a trait of seniority.