[ReaLNero]

> Many code bases that I've worked on suffered from too much, and badly engineered, code - not from not having enough code.

Because the projects that weren't built fast enough were eventually thrown away, meaning they never require maintenance, which is the source of the sampling bias you are observing. I've seen it happen in some cases (engineer with the wrong personality leading an R&D project).

[Tainnor]

But not every code base is in an early startup phase. Once the company is stable there isn't really any excuse to knock out underengineered garbage just to get something out of the door.