This was the way most software was built. In the past decade, there has been a heavy reliance on code reviews, perhaps because of the rise of dynamic languages where it helps to have test coverage and eyeballs on the code to get close to the help that a compiler provides. Is the software of this decade much better quality-wise than the stuff built without resorting to extensive code reviews? I doubt it somehow.

Code review has become a way to design by committee: if every team member gets to critique one aspect or another on every code review, most design paradigms will fail to make it through the gauntlet of the ad-hoc design process the code review entails.

Code review has also become a way to micromanage individual contributors without explicit effort from the engineering manager or similar authority figure. It can now be administered by your colleagues who can now revel in the power that it gives them over you.

Finally, code review is the ultimate busy-work that caters to the conceit of today's software developers: that they are craftsmen who produce bespoke objects of art and beauty. After all, if each piece of code is so thoughtfully critiqued and subjected to such scrutiny, it must be exquisite indeed! Oftentimes the reality is that the team comprises a half-dozen overqualified people polishing a turd that exists to squeeze both sides by creating a cozy monopoly or an oligopoly in a two-sided market. But that is too embarrassing to admit, and it certainly doesn't bode well for pulling in obscene amounts of funding and prestige!