there is certainly code that sucks; but the article strikes me as someone conflating "code that sucks" with "code that is complex and big and takes a while to get used to".

I have found that a lot of the "massive amounts of bad code" left behind by "rockstar developers" is actually just a long slow drip of added complexity in the face of changing requirements. and I find that people think they're "refactoring the code for readability" when a lot of times, they are actually just "rewriting the code and therefore understanding it in that process".