the client has some blame in it, you pay peanuts you get monkeys as they say.
standards on most new builds have always been poor and always will be really. You can only worry about your own work tbh. the price some companies put in for new build work is crazy. 2-4 % profit margin is very typical especially for national builders. Even before the credit crunch you would see as low as 7%.
30 years or so ago, the standards on new builds was of a pretty high standard :hurray:
things changed though in the early eighties when they brought in the 714 etc
the standards have been decreasing slowly ever since, probably at an all time low at the moment.