While I share similar instincts; these urges have to be mastered so that there is a balance between solving the unimportant and getting productive work done.

It's all too easy to get sucked into a multiple-day effort on something that yields no immediate benefit to the company while trying to solve these things. While the type of effort always contributes to ones long-term problem solving skills and the specific task *might* someday payoff they do not happen in a void.

There are other tasks competing with these intellectual exercises that have tangible, immediate benefits to the company and should get priority.