[d0paware]

This is a very underrated observation. I've seen teams where all code reviews pass through one or two individuals.

The "core developers" become a bottleneck to all changes, even if they offer the best feedback available. The team eventually leans on them as a crutch to catch all problems, progress grinds to a halt as everyone is waiting for their code to be reviewed by X, the core developers don't get any real work done, and the rest of the team never levels up because they don't learn lessons that sometimes are only learned the hard way in production.

Good leaders know how to "let go", delegate, and recognize when they're becoming part of the problem.