I think one of the issues is that engineers define bad code on a different set of dimensions than the business, and even amongst each other. Early in my career I was definitely guilty of this, that if the code didn’t fit my definition of perfect code, it must be bad. I’ve met great programmers (I don’t consider myself in this group) in my career who put even more strict criteria on something to be considered ‘not bad’. Then I worked at small companies, big companies, was an owner at one, and my definition of bad code narrowed. While my criteria are still subjective, if the code meets the business goals and a baseline of quality I consider it fine. Because outside of some absolute genius programmers like Carmack, few of us will look at someone else’s code and not think of any type of improvement.