I have certainly done initial development on ideas that I then released to my team for further development. The initial code worked for my situation, and was an improvement on what we had previously (which was nothing). I expect my team to take the concepts, then continue to improve and enhance as they make use of the code in their own projects. In this case, I have no problem starting out "a little clunky".

I've been recently involved in a project where the initial development (if you want to call it that) was "a little clunky" in order to get something off the ground, but then became the standard method moving forward. Because it "worked", there was no company incentive to change it. Then a new release of our software came out and the whole process melted down. Now there is a new initiative to create something else a little less clunky, rather than doing the correct (albeit expensive) thing.

Relating to the Rolls-Royce analogy, this was like trying to farm 1000 acres with a tractor from 1950, because the tractor was cheap. Now that it broke down, rather than buying what it takes to do the job (because it's too expensive), we'll just buy a tractor from 1960 this time. I can tell you right now it won't hold up, and we'll be back to square one.

Certainly there is a judgement call as to when "a little clunky" is okay.