Nobody cares how the code looks, this is not an art project. But we certainly care if the code looks totally unmaintainable, which vibe-coded slop absolutely does.
LLMs are capable of producing junk, and they are capable of writing decent code. It is up to the operator to use them properly.
The prevailing research suggests this is not quicker than just writing it in the first place.
LLMs excel at tasks that are fresh. LLMs are wonderful at getting the first 80% of the way there. -- LLMs are phenomenally good for a first draft or so.
I've had worse experiences for getting LLMs / agents to refactor code. I would believe in many cases it could be quicker to just manually go through and make refinements compared to merely getting the LLM to keep trying.
To put it another way, ask what code an LLM can maintain, not just what code a human (of whatever experience level) can maintain.
* in the original sense, no human feedback at any point
I'd say spending at least a quarter of my vibe coding time on refactoring + documentation refresh to ensure the codebase looking impeccable is the only way my projects can work at all long term. We don't want to confuse the coding agent.