Look, I wasn't expecting anyone to thank me for my service when I went back to school for COBOL and saved all of your paychecks circa '97 - '99, but I'm not going to sit here and be compared to those bucket-toting girder jockeys.

Yes. Because whilst the same pressures exist, there's a short number of engineers licensed to actually sign off on a project, and they're not going to jeopardise that license for you.

Sounds like a case of real consequences for engineers working out well.

Only if you ignore downsides like drastically increased costs for most civil engineering projects.