I don't agree with the implicit premise that if the cheaper consultants had been required to maintain the tests and provide coverage for what they wrote, the code quality would have stayed high. In my experience, it would have turned into just as much of a mess, except would have taken three times as much work to maintain all the tests in the process.
Maybe the tests would have had some benefits, but would they have enough to justify all the extra time to write/maintain them? Certainly not.
In my experience, good programmers write good code, tests or not, and bad programmers write bad code, tests or not. I'm not against testing altogether, it makes sense in some contexts (like very widely used libraries). It's also useful for beginners who aren't sure "where to start" with a project. But even in cases where people swear that their tests are invaluable because it's tricky code that breaks often, that's a sign to me that that code needs to be made less fragile, not more well tested. TDD is a cargo cult.
Maybe the tests would have had some benefits, but would they have enough to justify all the extra time to write/maintain them? Certainly not.
In my experience, good programmers write good code, tests or not, and bad programmers write bad code, tests or not. I'm not against testing altogether, it makes sense in some contexts (like very widely used libraries). It's also useful for beginners who aren't sure "where to start" with a project. But even in cases where people swear that their tests are invaluable because it's tricky code that breaks often, that's a sign to me that that code needs to be made less fragile, not more well tested. TDD is a cargo cult.