There is no art without process though. The art is the process. Is an automatic piano more beautiful than a world class pianist? Of course not.
I am not strictly equating this to coding though. Like the GP sometimes I am driven more by the product than by being able to make it by hand. But that does not mean vibe coding, I still make sure the code is up to my standards.
> It makes less sense in an era when tenure is better measured in months than years.
If a person's tenure in companies is measured in months then they're signalling they're a C by your logic, or is at least raising a red flag to whoever's hiring. I may be showing my age but that sounds wild to me if that's the norm now.
Your best result is not even an order of magnitude faster, while this repo is claiming on average almost 2 orders of magnitude faster. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence sort of thing.
I'm not getting it. OP said they are wary of letting the agent make choices for them, and outsourcing those choices lessens their understanding of them. They could interrogate the agent on why those choices were made until they have sufficient understanding, and they can also change the solution if they want to.
As a wise man once said, we didn't start the fire. It was always burning since the world's been turning.