> And to be enforced you need to actually be hands on in the code base.

I think this might be a difference in opinion on whether we're referring to the architecture of a codebase or architecture of a system. They're different things.

> The right answer to systems design in 95%+ of cases is a single application modularized using language tools talking to a single DB.

There are still a ton of systems design considerations to take into account with a monolithic approach. Good architecture doesn't necessarily always imply a microservices architecture, I agree, but it doesn't mean all architecture concerns can be ignored - you just have a different set of things to optimise for.