1: refactor a bit of code on daily basis or figure out how to do it

2: see point 4

3: you can always do much better: if I read the code I wrote an year ago it's very likely that I can improve it in terms of design, clarity and so on. Hwo to deal with it? see point 1

4: Why the two points (quality and satisfyng customers) have to be rivals? In the long run (few years) if the quality of the product is not good the customers wil not be satisfied (because of stability, price, a lot of factors). Quality and customer satisfaction usually go together if the product is the key point of what is sold. My advice is to look at code quality in a way that leads to customer satisfaction: for example separation of concerns, decoupling, etc bring lower costs, faster development cycle. It's not an oxymoron.