Totally agree with the "deploy first" method. That initial win of seeing the green status light is key for momentum. One caveat from my own mess-ups:...

>building a library of templated configs or even a small internal CLI tool That's a huge part of the cost right there. You've just described build...

Completely agree on provider commitment being the big blocker. It reminds me of when OpenMetrics launched for observability, the spec was great but ad...

Yep, that design system comparison hits home. It's the same learned helplessness. The AI becomes the grid they don't understand. I like your idea of ...