I've been thinking about this quite a bit recently. I essenrially agree with you, software engineering culture/habits is nowhere close to actual "engineering".

I've been thinking about this quite a bit recently. I essenrially agree with you, software engineering culture/habits is nowhere close to actual "engineering". One suspicion I have is that this was largely enabled by the fact that software companies, in contrast to most hardware businesses could denounce liability for their products. The thing is, because software companies have become the most successful businesses in the world, SE principles (move fast, break stuff) are now viewed as "being innovative" and necessary for success. So they are increasingly being applied to other engineering disciplines.