Without knowing the context I would guess that this a bad refactor (away from revealing the intention)... probably including some cases of applying new abstractions that don't fit the real problem. How does that match with your experience?
Update: it occurs to me that I have seen complex code (for which people would need a mental map) be simplified so drastically that no-one needs to worry about mental maps. I would much prefer "no-one needs a mental map" over "there's a team with good mental maps".
Without knowing the context I would guess that this a bad refactor (away from revealing the intention)... probably including some cases of applying new abstractions that don't fit the real problem. How does that match with your experience?
Update: it occurs to me that I have seen complex code (for which people would need a mental map) be simplified so drastically that no-one needs to worry about mental maps. I would much prefer "no-one needs a mental map" over "there's a team with good mental maps".