Design Systems: Consistency vs. Creativity

I recently worked with a team that had a design system so rigid that developers were afraid to create new patterns. The result was a stale product. On the flip side, no system leads to chaos. The sweet spot lies in a 'governed flexibility' model. We discuss how to maintain a core set of non-negotiable tokens (colors, typography, spacing) while allowing 'snowflake' components for marketing pages or unique features, provided they eventually get audited and potentially adopted back into the system.