That's exactly it. An experienced programmer finishes tasks without writing a crap ton of code. A new grad cranks out zillions of lines, tons of technical debt,

That's exactly it. An experienced programmer finishes tasks without writing a crap ton of code. A new grad cranks out zillions of lines, tons of technical debt, and gets very little done. Line count is inversely proportional to ability, to a certain limit. There is no steep decline in programming ability after 35, or 40, or 50. There is often a steep decline in interest. There are many interesting things to do in the world, and people naturally gravitate to new things after doing one thing for 10, 20, or 30 years. As long as the interest is there your programming ability can improve pretty much indefinitely.