[spathi_fwiffo]

Not sure what you mean by 'late'. I guess it all depends on process defined for your project. Most SCM systems have some way to make code visible before it is published to the live code base (via branches, etc).

Also, passing tests is meaningless if the tests are worthless or incomplete. So, those alone can't be used as a metric of code sanity; Meaning obvious bugs are still possible.

Tests and reviews are just to reduce the number of released bugs. and hopefully increase maintainability.

Also, what's obvious to one developer might not be to another.