My experience mirrors yours exactly but with one difference - we were using .NET (C# specifically). I'm now a professional .NET contractor (among other things)

My experience mirrors yours exactly but with one difference - we were using .NET (C# specifically). I'm now a professional .NET contractor (among other things) and looking back at the code we wrote 7 years ago terrifies me. Thankfully I'm not responsible for maintaining it anymore. I suppose the point is that incompetence is language-agnostic. :)