This same principle often applies to reading others' code. It's common to look at it, see something inscrutable, and decide that the author was an idiot. Then you try to rewrite it, trip over all the same bugs that the author had learned to avoid, and maybe - if you're smart and honest with yourself - accept that you had unfairly maligned your colleague. I've written about this before, as have many others including Joel Spolsky. My favorite is this:

http://notinventedhe.re/on/2010-4-22

If you re-read the article with an eye toward how it describes the behavior of programmers even more than it describes that of business people, it becomes much more valuable.