> On the other hand, I'm not sure pipelining in itself is any more (or
> less) "natural" than template matching;

Yes, but the point about maintainability isn't that the design is
necessarily easier to establish in the first place, it's that it's open to
change and resistant to structural decay once in place. In particular, new
functionality can often be introduced by adding a pipeline component, which
means there is minimal need to understand the internal logic of existing
components, and minimal risk of destabilizing them.

Cheers,
Wendell