> To audit the code accurately (as opposed to merely giving out aesthetic advice), in most cases would involve learning the domain, and this is what's expensive.

There are a lot of things between aesthetics and domain knowledge that are audit-able. A lot of code bases you can walk into and see a million n+1 queries right away and the architectural patterns that lead to them. Another canary is the test complexity that reveals various anti-patterns like active record. Another is correct IOC usage, a lot of code bases will use it for creating POCO objects for example. These are all very common and quickly discoverable.

> So, this sort of devolves to economics, at least where I work. What I mean is, the people that pay for the code don't care and don't care to know. And this is entirely rational from their point of view. If it appears to work, it's good.

I wonder if you could go in and say "this project is costing you $10 million" and we can give you an early indication of whether it's going to be worthwhile or be a turd.