PEP-8 is a red herring. Aesthetics, however, is not. The beauty of code is often an excellent indicator of its general quality.
You bring up a good point about editing and the value of free/open-source. I've been thinking about this often, recently. It's similar to the troubles plaguing news media. The propaganda may not be as malicious, but is similarly self-promoting, or promoting one's interests. Students have always suffered from bad textbooks, but before the internet we relied on professors to select good ones. Now we just have popularity and the vagaries of Google or upvotes on Hacker News. Of course, professors haven't always been great editors either.
You bring up a good point about editing and the value of free/open-source. I've been thinking about this often, recently. It's similar to the troubles plaguing news media. The propaganda may not be as malicious, but is similarly self-promoting, or promoting one's interests. Students have always suffered from bad textbooks, but before the internet we relied on professors to select good ones. Now we just have popularity and the vagaries of Google or upvotes on Hacker News. Of course, professors haven't always been great editors either.