The Stratocaster guitar is a design masterpiece. A true icon. But perfect? No. Fender products were designed to be manufactured cheaply at scale, not to be the best guitars possible. So it seems surprising that attempts to improve it have largely failed.

Why is that? As a master guitar builder explained to me, by removing the flaws, refining the construction or quality of materials, the tone often moves further away from what people want. Instead of becoming a Stratocaster but more so, it can start to sound soulless.

Consider another icon, the Porsche 911, whose design is not merely imperfect, but fundamentally flawed. The engine — hung out past the rear axle — is in the wrong place according to physics, yet they’ve sold over a million of them. Leica's current M-series camera is another example. It relies on a cumbersome manual focus system that seems willfully anachronistic these days. But there's a long waiting list if you fancy one.

What's the point?

Following trends and best practices, or seeking ever-greater performance can be to our detriment if we lose our distinctiveness, or — worse still — lose sight of what makes us us.

Our quirks — as organizations or individuals — are often our strengths. As Dr. Seuss put it, "You have to be odd to be number one."

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