Bad programmers have no problem getting hired because the broken hiring process in our industry rewards those who know how to do the right song and dance (data structure and algs) independent of how good they actually are. I know, have worked with, and have laid off devs like this.

Never worked at a big company in the US I'm guessing. Because they are havens for bad programmers, who inevitably advance to some position of authority and can crush the spirit and productivity of whole departments. Now with 'agile' and code review hurdle on checkin etc, it can actually be impossible to improve the situation. Even Silicon Valley has become infected with this.

Sorry, not sure if I read correctly, but are you advocating against code reviews before committing code?

I'm advocating against self-appointed police setting themselves up as arbiters of style and technique, who delay projects by weeks and multiply the effort required to pass their arbitrary notions of how a pointer should be compared to null or whatever. Its insulting, pointless and aggravating, especially when you spend Labor Day weekend cranking to get a feature ready for a demo, but can't check it in Monday because so-and-so doesn't like some style issue.

Sounds like valid criticism of a particular review process or reviewer, not reviews as a general gate to pushing code. I’ve worked at places without mandatory code review and the code in those places is consistently awful.

I've never experienced anything else along those lines, so your mileage may vary of course. But once a company falls into this trap, its not something the new guy can fix.