@jeff - "short cuts" , in this context means : a) Increasing time pressure on the Production DBA with limited time to plan and apply principles adequately. b) Many DBAs I know , are frustrated by increased responsibilities but with insufficient increased resources to tackle these responsibilities.

Maintaining Production environments in a complex , constantly changing environment , with SAN , network, VM - upgrades, fixpacks - creates extra workload for the DBA - regarding troubleshooting , capacity planning etc. As a result , developers in lower environments don't receive the necessary attention from the DBAs.