I missed the point here: article ended too abruptly, without examples. Yes, sure, smart programmers solve problems and write adequately simple code.

The secret however is in understanding the problem in the correct context, seeing bigger picture. Otherwise there will be endless supply of problems to solve...

As for "boring" code, I am usually more concerned with "programming in large" - organizing the code properly, enabling modularity/compasability/etc. Then specific functions can be "boring" - they are easy to change / optimize. But when the code organization is not well thought of - then nothing helps...