No, "somewhere in the middle" is the wrong lesson to take. They're on different axes. You can have an operationally rigorous, pleasant place to work. You can have an operationally terrible, awful place to work. You can have somewhere that's mediocre at both.

The false belief in a dichotomy is exactly the problem.

Isn't the point of the article that 'operational rigour' implies a certain, significant, degree of unpleasantness?

Not really. It's the point that one might take from the title alone, but the article doesn't substantiate it.

> And from anecdotal evidence I also know that Western companies with sufficient operational rigour tend to be rather … unpleasant places to work. “Is that not the price of excellence?” a friend said, after I told him of this conundrum. “What, you expect such operational excellence to come for free?”

> An obvious point in retrospect;

It's not an obvious point at all, and the author doesn't try to back it up. The point the article makes is that:

1. Deming himself didn't hold the two in opposition; and

2. It's unclear from any evidence that they need to be, in practice.