That doesn't make sense that spaces vs tabs would result in a 2x longer checkout. Something else is at play if that is the case.

He did mention it was subversion

I see your confusion. They said Subversion with a capital S. So the source control system, not the covert destruction of a dev team from within. Easy mistake to make. (... Stupid git.)

Maybe the codebase was one giant index.php file with an average of 20 levels of nested conditionals and open curly braces on a new line.

Someone who comes onto a project and actually wants to charge money to sit there and convert tabs to spaces or vice versa. Incredible.

My attitude is generally "Which one, pick one, this one, classic"

Or like, cool, this is the code style. I don't care if it's sublime or stinks to heaven. When we get to a total rewrite we'll address that. Which features are you hiring me to implement? Which bugs need to be fixed? How can I not waste my time or yours?

Seriously, this takes yak shaving to a whole new level.