There must be chemistry. Compatible minds, attraction, love/lust, ... luck, whatever chemistry really is.
If feelings aren't mutual, then I don't see the point of it.
Luck is a great factor. He might have dodged a bullet, she might have made the wrong choice. Frankly I don't give a damn about them.
I've turned down worthy people, I've been turned down by less-worthy ones, and reverse. It doesn't matter. I don't have any regrets.
Programmers, like all people, can be good looking, physically fit, not socially awkward(?:, successful, financially stable/rich, confident, healthy, faithful, non-promiscuous, happy, etc., etc.)? and good in bed. The exact opposite can also happen. Most times it's a variable combination and that's just the way it is. That is how nature works.
Tastes and opinions (not only prejudices) can change and people can find themselves compromising as they grow older. This is what matters to me, I don't want to see myself regretting choices related to my love life.
> I had huge headaches configuring it when migrating php apps with huge htaccess rules to nginx
I also had this issue whenever I did migrations between different web applications that used different URL structures. To preserve my sanity, I now do the redirects in the application level.
I predict nginx will get a lot of competition from servers and applications written in Rust. Until then, it's viable as a reverse proxy and serves static files really great.
I think the way the Gmail team implements new features is quite cautious when I compare that, for example, to the recent Reddit redesign.
Progressive and slow changes, so that the users don't notice them and get overwhelmed is the way to go. I bet Google has the manpower and funds to A/B test the usefulness and user acceptance of any such changes.