Overengineering: just like they taught you in school!

Things may have changed a bit in the past 10 years, but back when I was in school it was assumed that change to software was expensive. Working with that assumption, it makes sense to try and design everything to handle any eventuality. As Luke Hutteman, Rod Johnson and others point out, over-engineering really causes more problems than it solves. The notion of refactoring to patterns appeals far more to me than trying to impose patterns prematurely.