Agree. Another item here that is contextual: what is the cost of a bug? Does it cost millions, do we find that out immediately, or does it take months? Or does it not really matter, and when we’ll find the big it will be cheap? The OP joining a new company might not have the context that existing employees have about why we’re being cautious/clear about what we’re changing as opposed to smuggling in refactors in the same PR as a feature change.

I’m going to be the guy that is asking for a refactor to be in a separate commit/PR from the feature and clearly marked.

It doesn’t justify everything else he mentioned (especially the comments piece) but once you get used to this it doesn’t need to extend timelines.