You are, and in a very ironic way. I never said their codebase had a problem. I don't know anything about their codebase. It might be just peachy.

Look at it this way. What if someone was hiring you to build pyramids by lifting each stone using only the narrowly prescribed box of using your own power (since "that's how we've always done it" say), they might also say that your focus on horses and pulleys was a wasteful obsession about means instead of ends and that you shouldn't flinch about dragging each stone yourself all day every day. They might think you are just wasting your time tinkering when you should be moving stones instead, but the truth is that your means are the only human way to reach those ends.

But again, their codebase might be perfectly fine. The thing is, I don't like to be told that I have to accept that it is before I've looked at it myself. They can have a really good hacker who will keep his head down, pump out code, and not question past decisions, or they can have critical thinking, but not both.