If one can have an entire 20min piece about how bad fire escapes are and how bad they were from the start it kind of begs the question as to why they were allowed on new construction to begin with. Surely somebody was in favor of them?

Perhaps a comparison to the current breaker requirements in the electrical code and other "industry excess" shall we say, in the IBC is in order.

But Grady isn't gonna make that comparison because when a man's salary depends on not understanding something he won't understand it.

Building code is a very, very, very dirty sausage factory and dirty factories produce a lot more "oops we were doing it in a way we knew was wrong for 50yr" outcomes than the clean ones. It's a disservice to everybody to just hand wave that all away at a dozen points like is done here.