> I actually believe the opposite: exactly the fact that a reviewer had to develop a mental model independently is why code review is and remains valuable (and why people use different models when doing agentic reviews).

I don't think we actually disagree here. I also think it is valuable, but it's also what often makes it difficult.

> The biggest value of doing code reviews is in ensuring maintainability of the code (1. someone else can understand it, 2. it is readable and 3. can be evolved in the future) — everything else is downstream from that.

Agree very much with that (with the slight caveat that it is not always the biggest value, just an important one).