In a similar way to how a radial burn (https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/44608/what-happens...) may be orthogonal to your trajectory but still may be necessary to avoid becoming a fireball in half an orbit's time.

How so? Let's say that over a year, a given section of code needs to be read and understood once a month. Taking some time to keep the code succinct and free of distraction will increase productivity all those occasions, as well as the rest of the lifetime of the system. Say the next decade.

How is that not efficient?

Which is not what is being discussed. Often rewriting code to make it more understandable makes everybody more productive.

you have evidently been blessed to work only in places with acceptable level of quality code and above.

non-coding manager spotted

Simplification usually requires the most effort and results in simple and elegant systems easy to understand and maintain with reduced error surface.

So overall increases productivity by a lot