So why are software "engineers" stamping all of this slop? Could it be because they are forced to do so in order to "leverage ai"? Or maybe it's just the shitty and mediocre engineers doing so while the rest are labelled luddites?

Specifically what exactly is preventing the same pattern of fire competence and force mediocrity to sign off from working in any other area? The risk of catastrophic failure? There's insurance for that, another domain that's a harness around a model (albeit not a large language one, yet).