Regarding expensive, empirical tests found the medium assurance methods to cost either the same or cheaper due to huge reductions in debugging or maintenance issues. This was the case for Fagan Inspections, Cleanroom especially, TSP, and iterative methods with safer languages.<p>Far as high assurance, the level of assurance is usually applied to a high level design or some small, critical component. The cost reported for LOCK was about 30% extra on top of a solid lifecycle. Same percentage for security costs of one Special Access Program. A small team did an EAL7 IPsec VPN in relatively short time. I&#x27;d love to know cost overhead of Praxis Correct by Construction. seL4 cost a few million for highest extreme.<p>So, applied correctly, even high assurance methods result in a reasonable premium for certain industries. Niche as you said. Time to market is another story with high assurance killing that. Yet, medium assurance is nearly as fast and around same price as solid lifecycle while paying dividends later.<p>So, the cost and lead time objections are a misconception if we&#x27;re aiming for medium level which is merely high quality. It benefits long-term better than alternatives. Only exception is bottom-dollar deals and one offs where it barely working is acceptable.