Pass-A-Frozo
Unfortunately, this is an area in which I am in total agreement with you... as one with many programmer friends (and a brother who is the chief programmer for a multi-state electric power utility: Sierra-Pacific Power, which controls all electric power in Nevada, eastern Oregon & Washington, and parts of California), the state of programming in the US (as far as coherence, simplicity, and effectiveness) has deteriorated drastically in the last 25 years!
This is emphatically shown by the fact that virtually every major US Defense project (and many civilian ones) has experienced major software problems during its development phase... accounting for a majority of the cost and time overruns on almost every such program!