I really appreciate this point, and I think it applies very broadly. Good design comes from a coherent, individual (or group) vision. Citing examples will only incite discussions, because everyone has a different needs and ideas, but the things I most appreciate in tech and art share this common aspect.
As I see it, relying on excessive telemetry, surveys, focus-groups, etc is a bit of an indication that nobody at the top has a strong idea of where to take the project.
Which is strange coming from ~Go~ Google. The community loudly demanded features for years which ~Go~ Google said were unnecessary (dependency management, monotonic time, etc). Weird to think that telemetry would do anything to change their opinions when the project has always done what it wants.
Edit: fighting the markup trying to get strikethrough to work
As I see it, relying on excessive telemetry, surveys, focus-groups, etc is a bit of an indication that nobody at the top has a strong idea of where to take the project.