My guess is that they would be more likely to “fix” and “improve” Ken’s algorithm than understand it (Jon Bentley mentioned, in passing, a similar case where this was the outcome.)

They can learn finite automata from computer science text books.

True, i suppose, but theres simply no substitute for contextual, on the job learning. imo

Oh! "Educating the newbies/grunts" is the reason for #$#@&#?

I'd say that an org has a limited number of pennies to spend on non-trivial code. Let's spend them wisely.