The restraint, rigour and responsibility you showed prior to LLMs relates directly to how much of that you apply now that they’re here.

Given how rare it was previously, and how little it was cultivated by shortsighted management, I’m not surprised with all the slop we see today.

The truth is there’s nothing stopping someone from using these tools to remove dead code, simplify project structure, remove dependencies, etc. but I don’t see it happening very often. I have done it a bunch myself though so it’s absolutely possible, it’s all a matter of investment and prioritization.