snip of lead in
Today, in locals with good building inspection departments, a PE can sign off on almost any building job and the inspector will OK it. Depends on the locale and its rules whether or not the inspector has any options, but in many, he (or she) is simply considered outranked, I guess.
Personally, I've seen PEs design things that are wondrous to behold and work perfectly. And the next guy up designs something I wouldn't let my neighbor's cats live in. But mostly they end up signing off on truss designs for site built items, etc., at least in residential and light agricultural construction, which is all I am familiar with.
Charlie Self "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." Thomas Jefferson