I agree, linting doesn't pick up much. But, at places I've worked where the codebase was kept linted, the humans did a better job of catching bugs in code review.
My guess is that, when you have a cosmetically messy code base, people start to develop a lower standard for what counts a understanding the code they're reading. Probably as a self-preservation mechanism. There's only so much time in a day.
Also: if your coworkers care enough about quality to add and maintain a linter, they're the kind of coworkers that care to do good code-reviews and maintain a high quality bar.
