Far from being douchey, I think you've hit the nail on the head. No one is perfect, we're all incompetent to some extent. You've written shitty code, I've definitely written shitty code. There's little time or consideration given to going back and improving things. Unless you're lucky enough to have financial support while working on a FOSS project where writing quality software is actually prioritized.

I get the appeal software developers have to start from scratch and write their own kernel, or OS, etc. And then you realize that working with modern hardware is just as messy.

We all stack our own house of cards upon another. Unless we tear it all down and start again with a sane stable structure, events like this will keep happening.