[geoelectric]

I was QA prior to the advent of mandatory unit test for commit (I'm actually an SDET or tools/infra SWE nowadays, depending on hat) and, even then, untested code was mostly fine, as evidenced by the fields of green "PASS" spreadsheets.

Those spreadsheets either meant it was good when you got it or you did a crappy job testing it, and either way it was fine before being tested. Regression testing in particular is an exercise in generating "PASS" results, and historically QA practice has been dominated by regression testing.

Luckily, SW practices have changed enough that (as you say) most code is at least minimally tested by the developer and, maybe more importantly, some minimal level of unit testing is expected now as a basic professional standard. Hopefully we never move backwards again.