You're kidding yourself if you don't think that mechanical, structural or any other engineers don't do the same thing. They do.

I worked for one of the UKs leading architecture / construction firms writing software and also am an amature mechanic.

You'd be amazed at how many gasket types, nuts, bolts, fasteners, unfasters, glues, concretes, bonding agents and so on ... all invented for edge preferences and most of which could be used interchangably.

Also standards? Hah. They're an absolute shitshow in any engineering effort.

I mean ... even just units of measure. C'mon.