FAQ 33.15 Why do some developers dislike final member functions and final classes?

Because they don't see the big picture and/or because they don't follow the design guidelines presented in FAQ 13.14.

Suppose class Circle inherits from abstract base class Shape, and suppose Circle is declared to be final (see FAQ 33.09 for the code). If the system was designed using the principles from FAQ 33.14, then there are very few Circle& used in the application as a whole. Therefore, there is no inherent pressure for new classes to inherit from Circle; they can just as easily inherit from Shape.

Even if a new derived class could have benefited from inheriting some code from Circle, the code bulk of class Circle would be very small compared to the rest of the system, particularly on large systems, so any cost savings would be insignificant. The larger the system, the less significance any individual class has.

The moral is to focus on the big picture.