Good article, but I'd guess the reality is more like 25-50x as much work as non-technical people assume, and a good interface takes about 5x the work of everything else.
They don't merely underestimate the non-interface work, they greatly underestimate the interface work as well.
You've probably hit upon a good metaphor for what's happening.
I believe each time we sleep parts of our personalities are torn down and rebuilt slightly differently.
Whatever the mechanism, you aren't really the same person you were years ago, you're a different person with many of the same memories. The "self" is a useful simplification of reality. At the fundamental level, its not possible to define "you" and "not you" at a moment in time, much less across spans of time.