> Now that I can see the code, I understand why the dev shop needed so many people working on it, and why all features were hard to do. It's because when you use a lot of mediocre programmers, they all create work for themselves and one another. Not intentionally, but just because they aren't able to see how the differing approaches and sloppy work slowly diminish productivity.

To me, that sounds like a leadership problem at the outside dev shop. Properly supervised, properly supported, and with reasonable deadlines, mediocre developers can provide extraordinary results per dollar spent on probably 80-90% of dev tasks.