You are being uninformatively pedantic, "There are places" is enough context for a throwaway sentence. Analysing every word or phrase is not productive and I think my meaning was clear enough.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html doesn't specifically mention nitpicking: I admit I have the same fault (Edit: rephrased this).

Edit 2: perhaps I should have added that I think engineering is the art of making good compromises.

I'm not being pedantic, as far as I understand the meaning of your comment. Asbestos is a very good material for making very cheap brakes, and in developing countries brakes are sometimes still made with asbestos for that reason.