A rant about PCR

One of my old friends will recall me ranting about this since at least July of 2020. Want more positive results? Just turn up the number of cycles. Want more negative results? Turn down the number of cycles... Or the temperature... Or the salinity... Or the pH. Or just decrease your initial sample size... We all knew these things as undergraduates in the 1990s. Why did so many "brilliant scientists" just forget what has been known for decades?