Have to share the sentiment. I remember the expectation of great systems engineering I had when I was at the beginning of my career. You know, ”These things must’ve been done well, as thousands/millions people use these daily”. I was enlightened pretty fast by the first couple of years as a consultant.

Nowadays I expect something clumsy and mediocre, regardless of the organization, with very apparent problems and _maybe_ some bright spots somewhere in the system architecture.