> The "consultants wrote sloppy code" is one of those memes that never die.

Your comment is one of those that feel intuitively right, because what you say makes sense... until faced with reality.

Most consultants that most permanent employees are likely to find are those that will do a crappy job, then be gone when shit hits the fan. Source: anyone who's ever worked with them, myself included. Actually, both sides of the desk. They tend to do crappy jobs because those are the incentives they have.

You can argue till you're blue in the face, but your theory cannot push aside the actual experience of many if not most of us.

Of course, the occasional scenarios where the consultants are solid and doing top-notch work exist, but what matters is the majority of what happens... and it's not good.

So the meme won't die, because it reflects reality.